


Rock and a Hard Place

by KathGrau



Series: Paws [4]
Category: NCIS
Genre: Alternate Universe, Case Fic, M/M, Shapeshifting, Slavery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-25
Updated: 2016-05-25
Packaged: 2018-06-10 15:41:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 30,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6962923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KathGrau/pseuds/KathGrau
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Getting to know each other is hard. Especially if communication is not your strong suit and a case hits a little bit too close to home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Take your partner's problems seriously

**Author's Note:**

> Beta read by wintermute_lj. She put some needed polish on the text, something I am very grateful for. It is much smoother and riddled with less errors now. All remaining mistakes are my own. 
> 
> Sequel to Paws for Christmas. For the sake of this story (and since I got really confused when I tried to  
> research housing options for the U.S. Army Garrison Miami) please accept my invention  
> of a gated military housing community in Homestead, Florida.
> 
> Additionally there might be some upsetting content involving a teenager, the team and the Feline system. Some readers might not be happy with how the main characters deal with the situation.  
> The chapters need some editing, the formating sucks when c/p so it will take more time to post them.

January 2004

Tony primly folded his hands in his lap, sat there, on his prescribed low bench seat with his legs closed and folded half under him; with his shoulders proudly straight and his head bent, he was the picture of elegant attentiveness. Or he would be if not for  
one big out of place detail: instead of demurely lowering his eyes (and since when was he a blushing virgin debutante, for fucks sake!), he was gleefully watching the other two occupants in the conference room. After having been told for two days – to the  
amusement of the rest of the team – of 'don't whine, it can't be that bad', 'see it as training in selective hearing', and Tony's personal favorite 'just shut your trap and get it over with', there was nothing quite as satisfying as watching Gibbs fail to use his own  
advice less than five minutes into their first joined session of 'Basic Rules for Feline Owners'.

After the Shepard debacle someone in the Feline Division of the Secret Service had convinced the President that having a half-trained Feline and an owner who was ignorant of the rules out in public might not be the best of ideas. Which resulted in Agent Justine Pope-Leyton showing up at NCIS with the order to give the pair a crash course.

His dear owner, lover and boss, one Leroy Jethro Gibbs, was at this very moment eying their instructor with the expression normally reserved for particularly moronic recruits after he arrested them - like the one that was at the moment waiting downstairs to be processed. “I don't care if it is traditional! It's a hazard in the field.”

Yep, scathing and incredulous both. Tony lowered his head a little bit more to conceal his twitching mouth. The glittering eyes he could get away with. Smirking? Not so much. 

  
He didn't want another half-hour long lecture about inappropriate facial expressions for a Feline in public or mixed company.

Agent Justine Pope-Leyton, clothed in a very fine Yves Saint-Lauren pant suit, raised an unimpressed elegantly formed eyebrow and let her pen hit the clipboard in her other hand just once, then sat both things aside. “Special Agent Gibbs, you have been  
ordered to attend this course to learn the correct way to handle your Feline so further unfortunate incidents can be avoided. I would really recommend that you cooperate and heed my advice. I am not trying to be difficult on principle but I have a lot of  
experience training Felines. It is really a pity that A'thon pretended to be stuck in his cat form and thus had missed out on the full training,” she upped the force of her glare.

“Unfortunately A'thon doesn't seem to be the only one here who does not want to follow the rules. The traditional collars are known by every Law enforcement agencies and police departments. We made sure to send them refresher information with the  
pertinent descriptions this week so everyone who sees an owned Feline will recognize them as such and react accordingly.”

Tony sighed. Nearly all of the LEOs he had met on cases simply didn't give a damn about his little extra characteristics beyond the first startled stare at his eyes. The few who had sneered, they weren't worth the hassle of remembering them longer than the span of their investigation. Generally everyone they met was far too busy being annoyed with or, depending on the officer, scared of his cantankerous boss. In fact, most of them were quite happy that Tony had taken on the task of playing buffer between the NCIS team and the locals. If Tony hadn't gotten to know Gibbs and his moods so well, he would have suspected that their leader behaved that way on purpose to present Tony as a sort of lesser evil.

Chances were good that all this new information pamphlet would accomplish was to make the situation worse. Pope-Leyton meant well; she had always been one of the nicer trainers at the Stables - or the Center, as it was called now according to her - but  
despite her Secret Service background she just didn't seem to get that she was not dealing with a typical Owner-Feline pairing. All the traditional training in the Feline world wouldn't have prepared him for working side by side with a Navy Cop. Tony was a  
working cat, not a high society puss!

At least now he would be able to share his blight with his partner. And no, despite what Gibbs had said, this was nothing like one of the mandatory procedure or sexual harassment lectures every Agent had to endure from time to time!

When Gibbs had entered the room Tony already had an hour of refresher training behind him and, gloating internally, had followed the instruction's orders for proper behavior nearly to the letter, just to give his partner a demonstration of what he had  
had to endure. Gibbs entered the room and pressed his lips into an uncompromising line after one look at the set-up of the room and another, longer look at Tony. The older man preferred to lean against the table, instead of sitting down on the regular chair that stood beside and slightly in front of the lower bench seat Tony was occupying at the moment.

The regular furniture had been removed but for one smaller table at the far side of the room which served as Agent Pope-Leyton's desk; the area in the middle was being used for training and demonstration. A dining table, complete with plates, glasses and the works, had been set-up alongside a desk and a couch. Heck, someone had dragged two field beds into the room, put a down comforter over it and enough pillows to make any teenaged girl giggle in glee plus some other additions that made Tony want to puke whenever he looked at it.

Gibbs shoved his hands into his pant pockets. “I don't care if your collars are traditional. On a human, wound around their throat and worn openly, they sparkle. You just don't give a criminal that kind of easy target. It's a basic rule every LEO and Agent knows. And that doesn't touch the issue of the break link not working when the collar is wound around his throat that way.” he coldly pointed out.

The not so hidden insult glided off the woman like water off a duck. “That is another point you might want to rethink: people are simply not used to seeing a Feline in human form in public and especially not as a member of an investigative team. It causes  
unnecessary conflicts and can endanger A'thon. Think of the reason I was sent here.”

The grin died on Tony's lips and he made an aborted move to touch his left cheek. The marks there had faded and were no longer visible, but they were well remembered. 

  
Unnecessary conflicts, his ass. Madam Director had been bat-shit, short and simple; it had nothing to do with Tony.

Pope-Leyton hadn't been mean or overly condescending with him the last two days, just very insistent on what she saw as correct behavior. Tony guessed that it hadn't been Major William's decision to send such a traditionally minded instructor specifically - the Major had more sense than that. It had to have been the brainchild of the same idiot that thought these lessons were important in the first place. Someone on the Hill was not happy with how the Center was developing. Too bad.

No matter how much Tony had grumbled and complained to the rest of the team, he had done his best to simply weather this small storm. Knowing that her opinion wouldn't matter in the end, that it was Gibbs' word that counted and not hers, had  
made it bearable. Now she threatened to take away a job he had grown to love within the five weeks he had lived and worked with Gibbs. Did she have the power of taking away his humanity in public by making it an official order?

“The President himself approved of my decision to take Tony into the field; he even agree to send him to FLETC for courses. And that incident with our former Director had more to do with her obsession with me and less with him running around on two feet  
instead of four.” Gibbs pointed out.

“I read the report, of course, and I concede that it was a highly unusual situation that is unlikely to reoccur in the future, but-” the woman made a gesture to Tony, like he was exhibit A in a lecture, “you can't deny that the way A'thon appeared in her presence aggravated the situation. She wouldn't have been as jealous of a tiger. Knowing that someone has another, possibly attractive form and seeing it are two very different things.”

“I wasn't open to her advances. At all. And I won't deny him his choice of how he wants to appear just to spare some fragile sensibilities,” Gibbs shot back and it made Tony's heart swell with warm feelings.

“Have you asked him if he wants to expose himself to constant scrutiny and uncomfortable reactions of total strangers?”

Now, wasn't that a clever way to make it sound like anyone who wanted to stay in human form must have lost his marbles, and it was just evil Gibbs' inconsiderate orders that forced his poor Feline to expose himself to harm? Tony could very well answer for  
himself, and from the way Gibbs cocked his head as soon as he moved and opened his mouth, the older man had waited for Tony to join the conversation and stop acting like a decorative piece of furniture. Tony stood up and took his place beside his boss.

“Yes, he did ask,” he firmly stated and watched the way her eyes narrowed.

Gibbs had given him the choice. Well, kind of. On his first day as a human Gibbs had ordered him to come with the older man to the office, but it had had more to do with his morphing illness than form preferences. And later...

“And Agent Pope-Leyton, He hasn't pressured me at all, it is me wanting to be useful, to fill my day with more than just being an ornament, that made me try to become a full member of Gibbs team, instead of just a tag-along. I like helping my team, I like  
investigating and solving crimes.”

Sometimes, though, like during this case last week where they didn't get to go home for 75 hours straight, he wouldn't have minded crawling under his desk and sleeping in his tiger form instead of doing that as a human. His tiger didn't mind hard floors.

“Most people at NCIS are used to me by now; they were just curious and unused to a Feline.”

“But the general public is more used to see Felines in their cat forms and it would be-”

Gibbs sharply nodded in direction of the improvised double bed and the disgusting nest of blankets at its foot, cutting her off at her argument that ran in circles anyways. “This does not look like you are restricting your lecture to the public domain either, does it?”

More like wanting to dictate each and every aspect of their lives – at least that's what it looked like to Tony.

“Those are needed for my overall assessment of the living situation. Where does A'thon sleep? Where does he eat? You refused to give me access to your home, Agent Gibbs, so I am unable to directly observe how you deal with the challenges of properly managing a Feline by yourself.”

Out of the frying pan... Tony could practically feel the fury pouring out of every pore of his boss. Gibbs was fiercely protective of his private domain, so of course he wouldn't allow some nosy stranger into his home.

“His name is Tony. And where he sleeps is. Not. Your. Business.” Gibbs slowly and precisely pronounced the last three words.

Pope-Leyton stiffened, pinned down by the unrelenting expression in the icy blue eyes staring back at her.

Would she be diplomatic and sensible enough to let go of Gibbs’ proverbial tiger tail, or would she risk being mauled? Gibbs didn't need fur, claws or predator's teeth to make someone scramble to back away slowly and carefully – it was a skill Tony envied.

Fortunately Gibbs didn't know about some of the sections in the questionnaire Tony had been asked to fill out yesterday and hand back at the end of the lectures. A document that now rested in the bottom drawer of Tony's desk and which he had decided to  
ignore for as long as possible. And maybe, just accidentally, let it fall into a shredder. No paper pusher at The Hill needed to know the answers to some of those questions to judge if Tony needed refresher training in all areas.

Apparently the female agent had some sense of self-preservation that won over her etiquette outrage, making her back off a little bit. “Let's concentrate on the public aspects for now. You do not seem to entertain much at home so that part would have  
played a minor role in my instructions anyway. Back to the collar.”

Her eyes, only daring to stray away from the scowling Special Agent for a brief moment, honed in on the simple dog tag chain around Tony's neck and it made him raise a hand and curl his fingers protectively around the old chain. The woman had demanded that he showed his platinum tag openly at all times. The way her eyes bulged when she saw what the precious small plate was hanging on had been alarming. Tony had feared that she would have a heart attack, and there was no doubt in his mind that whoever had sent her would have blamed him for it.

There had been days in the past when he had worn his Feline tag on his old collar openly, outside of his clothes for everyone to see and know whom not to fuck with, but after the holidays? No way. This chain had been a present and some things just were not for every Joe and Jane to gawk at.

“I don't let him out of my sight in the field. He is still very much at the beginning of his training as an investigator and I always have his ownership papers with me. Tony can easily pull the tag out if someone thinks they have a need to see it. After first dealing with me,” Gibbs growled. “Sacrificing focus and security for propriety's sake does not make any sense. We're generally operating on Marine and Navy property, not high society events. Your counter arguments?”

That had been, for Gibbs' standard, a long speech.

Their unasked for and unwanted etiquette instructor took a deep, deep breath. Of course she didn't answer Gibbs questions. “That brings me to my next point. You represent someone who is affiliated with the White House and the President, and thus  
have to match certain standards; that is in the rules you signed, Special Agent Gibbs. It reflects badly on everyone involved if that image is not met. I don't suggest that he runs around in dress shoes and a full designer suit, that would be impractical with the work you do, but these...” she helplessly waved her hand up and down to point at Tony's simple winter shoes, his favorite brown slacks and the simple but well fitting beige turtle neck pullover he was wearing today.

At one point in his past Tony had only known how the softest wool, silk and cotton with an insanely high thread count felt on his skin. He wouldn't say no if some Zegna suit appeared like magic in his half of the wardrobe, but he couldn't help but bristle in  
annoyance when this woman dismissed what he was wearing now like it was essentially trash. It would take months until every detail was smoothed out bureaucratically concerning his working as a full team member at NCIS. Details like his salary. One reason  
why the Feline had tried to play nice with this aggravating woman had been so that nobody would raise a stink and delay the mills of bureaucracy further. At the moment Tony was listed as an unpaid consultant, and he was still a long way off from being able  
to add something to the Gibbs' household finances or affording designer clothes.

Pope-Leyton acted like Gibbs was mistreating by forcing him to endure inferior clothes and that was not true. Gibbs could be a right bastard and gave a flying fuck about pandering to anyone's sensibilities, agents and Feline alike, but Gibbs was, in his own  
way, quite considerate in their private life.

It had been strange - and produced a warm tingling feeling whenever Tony remembered - to watch the taciturn man point at an aisle in Sears and order him to just snatch whatever he liked and needed. Gibbs would hover, all the while scowling at everyone  
and everything as the younger man selected items of the rack, but he had never complained or told him to put something back. And those slacks she was eying like they came out of a rummage bin, they might indeed be second hand and not very expensive,  
but they did nice things for Tony's ass, judging by the way Gibbs always stilled and spared him a look whenever Tony opened the lower drawers of the filing cabinet; and they had been Gibbs' first!

The Feline would never tell anyone, not for kind words nor under torture, that after his first 'human day' at work - and after Gibbs had retired into his own room - Tony had gotten up in the middle of the night and retrieved the borrowed clothes he had worn  
during the day, rubbing his cheek against the soft material of the sweater and stroking the wrinkles out of the slacks. The sweater he never wore to work anymore; he’d only wear it at home because he didn't want to risk ruining it at a crime scene.

Before Tony could give Pope-Leyton a piece of his mind - and judging from the hard line of Gibbs' lips suggested that he wasn't the only one who wanted to - a loud standard ring tone broke the tense silence. His boss pulled out his cell phone, squinted at the display and, without sparing the Secret Service Agent an excuse, answered the call with a terse 'Gibbs'.

The call lasted longer than Gibbs' normal phone conversations, and when his boss uttered a polite “Yes, Sir. I understand.” Tony's eyebrows rose until they nearly touched the fringe of his hair.

“Of course. Please tell them to send everything to my e-mail account. We're on our way,” the lead agent closed his phone before turning his attention to the scowling woman. “Excuse us, we have a case. I'll call Major Williams when we have time for you  
again.”

“You can't just break off this sessions at will for a random case! The President himself gave the order to instruct you on the common etiquette concerning Felines!”

Gibbs had already been halfway to the door, Tony at his heels and he didn't turn around to answer her. “Who do you think just called me?”

Another two steps and he shut the door from the outside.

.-#-.


	2. Defend each other.

“Grab your gear and overnight bags. Wheels up in half an hour,” Gibbs snatched his badge and weapon. “McGee, download everything some Lieutenant Colonel Mann sent to my inbox, we'll go over those in the car.” 

Tony didn't have a weapon or a badge. Yet. Yet! An inner voice brightly added. So, after a short hesitation, he threw a drawing pad - those artistic lessons at the Feline Stables had come in handy - as well as something to write on into his backpack and, with even more hesitation, shoved in that infernal pile of crap that disguised itself as an official questionnaire as well. Maybe there would be a silent minute for him to ponder about which little square he should mark.

“McGee, Tony!”

The Junior Agent had, after fiddling with Gibbs' email account, labored over the question of which of his two laptops he should bag and now, like he should have done in the first place, snatched both of them and shared a look of commiseration with Tony.  
The third member of Gibbs' Henchmen R'Us aside from Tim and Tony - and she would insist on being called the head-henchwoman, thank you very much - Special Agent Caitlin ‘Cait’ Todd was already in the elevator.

“Are you waiting for a written invitation?”

Ah, the voice of their master, impatient and demanding as always. “One sec..., I'm on ...your six, boss!”

The two younger men sprinted to the closing elevator door and nearly fell over each other in their haste to squeeze in and past their smirking boss.

“So, where are we going? LA? Pearl Harbor? Hawaii would be really cool; maybe I could see more of it than the pool and the inside of a suite this time. I love Hawaii,” Tony had been doing nothing but eagerly devouring old case files, so the prospect of visiting some of the bases in the more exotic locations, even if work-related, was making him giddy. Apart from one memorable Spring Break he hadn't been able to travel for years.

Cait threw him a long look but he just grinned broadly back at her. He knew, right after the words left his mouth, how they had sounded. If she made the wrong assumptions because of her background in the Secret Service, who was he to set her straight? He  
had actually visited Maui - as a twelve-year-old boy, and not as a piece of decorative ornament lend out temporarily by the Stables to some rich diplomat.

“Miami,” Gibbs said quietly, making three heads turn abruptly to gawk at him just as he fell silent again.

The three subordinates exchanged hesitant glances, and again, it was Tony who dared to ask the question that was on all of their minds. “But that is not a Navy or a Marine base, boss. I haven't gotten that far in my readings, and I’ve only skimmed over the base listings of other branches of the Armed Forces, since it doesn’t have direct impact on us, but... but isn't that base Army? Jacksonville, Pensacola and a couple others are ours, but not Miami. What do they want with us? Or we from them, come to think of it.” Tony mused.

A mix up with group transporters revealing stolen ordinance. A navy plane having to do an emergency landing on the base due to sabotage. Maybe they dug up an ancient mummified marine while renovating a building. Every scenario that came to mind was  
more unlikely than the last one. Army CID wouldn't give them extra work just for the fun of it; they were just as protective of their cases and every bit as territorial as NCIS.

“We're gonna find out,” Gibbs barely waited for the sliding silver doors to fully open before he stormed to where his personal car was parked. Both his and Tony's duffel bags with spare clothes and toiletries were in the trunk and he pulled them out without  
waiting for Tony.

“Why do I get a feeling that this is not going to be like our usual cases?” McGee groaned as he fought to hold his laptop cases and his backpack while trying to fish out the keys to his car from his coat pocket. Tony came to the rescue and took some of the luggages out of the computer geek's hands.

“Thanks Tony.”

“Not usual? Tim, you’re forgetting that I'm reading my way through the case files from the time you joined the team. There are some really crazy ones in that pile!” Tony commented but then grimaced himself in foreboding. Maybe the boss' gut was  
catching. “Let's just hope that this won’t be one of them.”

McGee snagged his own duffel bag out of the car. “From your lips to God's ear. Now let's hurry before the boss starts shouting at us again,” he said as they looked around after sorting themselves and their bags out, barely catching a glimpse of Gibbs  
disappearing in the direction of the office car pool.

.-#-.

McGee opened up the email from Colonel Mann in the backseat while Gibbs drove them to the airfield. All they could learned from the files that were sent, was that a mutilated body had been found. The circumstances under which the body was found were made confidential and would be better explained by their contact when they arrived at the Army base in Miami.

The first real difficulty they had to face was unrelated to the case though.

It didn’t come as a complete surprise that it wasn't a Navy transport that would take them to Miami; it was expected that the Army would be responsible for getting them to their destination by re-routing one of their own priority military transporters. What  
Tony didn’t expect was that it would be more comfortable than their normal military transport just because it belonged to another branch of the Armed Forces.

Tony had listened, half amused and half apprehensive, as McGee told him over the take-outs serving as their lunch (and with Gibbs far enough away so he couldn't mock the computer geek about his feeble civilian sensibilities) about Naval transport flights.  
Tim had some interesting stories about the canvas seats, air turbulences that weren't buffered by fancy electronics and pilots who clearly didn't know how to land their craft without giving the passengers a good shake.

They had hit their first wall when they came face to face with the Commander in charge of the Army soldiers onboard the transport.

The way the team was sent out immediately after they got the call had indicated that the case was important. But someone seemed to have neglected to take the time and smooth those ruffled feathers to ease the process. The result was an Army  
loadmaster, a sergeant who clearly wished them to hell, and four soldiers whose places they would apparently take. The soldiers were watching the team with trepidation on their faces as they stand next to the plane on the tarmac.

The sergeant had promptly insisted that Tony should be placed in the cargo hold after the man got his first good look at the Feline. This way he could at least take one more soldier with him, instead of relegating four men to stay behind so that some NCIS  
agents could catch a ride.

Tony didn't have time to decide how to react, and to battle the numbness that had blanked his brain, before Gibbs nearly exploded. Tony hadn't needed long to guess that his dear owner was always more touchy after being reminded about their rather exotic  
arrangement; today’s circumstances and their earlier encounter with Pope-Leyton had done that much. Now Gibbs had someone who presented himself as the perfect deserving lightning rod for Gibbs' bad temper…

“Sure, I'll risk one of my team being injured by rattling around in your crappy cargo hold just so you can spare one of your poor, sensitive soldiers some waiting time. Sergeant, is that what you want?”

The Sergeant wasn't fresh faced or easily cowed, and had been equally as annoyed with the situation so he just snorted. “I'll personally wrap your pretty boy into some blankets to make sure he doesn't get a scratch. I’ll even tie him down securely as an  
extra service, so don't you worry, Special Agent.”

Cait and McGee, who stood behind Gibbs on the tarmac, took a careful step backwards and then to the side slowly at the exact same time, trying to stay out of harms way.

The mere thought of being touched by this man, being tied down by him, even in a purely non-intimate way, nearly made Tony gag, and only his pride made him reign in his reaction. He collected spit in his mouth to wash away the acidic taste, and tightened  
his fingers on his bag's strap so they wouldn't stray and squash that arrogant asshole's nose purely by accident. The man's ugly mug looked like he wasn't the first to feel that need anyway, Tony thought spitefully.

Gibbs was in the man's face now, eyes blazing and lips tight. “Tony is not cattle. But you have just found the perfect solution for taking those four soldiers with us as well. Why don't you find more blankets and cuddle all four of them up in the cargo hold instead? If you are so sure that it's the perfect way to transport a human being, go ahead.”

The Sergeants’s jaw was working furiously. “That-” he pointed his finger at Tony, and the next thing he knew, Gibbs had shifted his position so that the finger pressed against  
the agent's suit.

Wind from the still running turbines was ruffling Gibbs' short hair, making it stand on end as a nice outward reflection of the storm in his eyes. “Is mine. My. Team. Member. You, or anyone else on this plane, won't lay their hands on him, is that understood? I  
can stand here all day if you want me to.”

One of the soldiers took a hesitant step forward and dared to intrude on the clash of the titans. “Sir, I wouldn't want to travel in the cargo hold either, blankets or no blankets. I don't mind waiting as long as I'm not late for debrief.” Two of his comrades nodded  
assent, and the fourth simply kept out of it.

The plane likely had already lost time, having to pick Gibbs’ team up, and every further delay would have to be explained to someone higher up. Maybe it was that little fact instead of a furious Gibbs, but the Sergeant schooled his features into impassiveness  
and motioned them to enter the plane. Gibbs made sure to place himself between Tony and everyone else as they board, while Cait and McGee took care to cover their backs. They were entering enemy territory, it seemed.

Tony didn't say anything else as they sat down and made sure that they were secure in their uncomfortable canvas seats. Tony sat next to the wall with Gibbs beside him, and Cait then Tim filling up the row. Of course, someone had watched and witnessed the  
little fracas on the ramp, and they were now under the scrutiny of a lot of nosy Army soldiers.

The four cases they had worked since Christmas had all run rather smoothly. Tony had gotten some startled looks, a few sneers, and nearly no comments. The glow of his budding relationship with Gibbs had shielded him from the bad reactions he had to  
weather. It didn't matter much at the end of the day. If the case allowed it, they would go home in the evening, and it was an unspoken rule that what had happened outside those four walls, would stay outside those four walls.

But this? This was a whole new level of crap. Words Pope-Leyton had badgered him with came to the Feline's mind - the ones about unnecessary trouble and battling windmills, frustration and resentment. He couldn't help but fear that the time between  
Christmas and now was an exception, and this here was going to be the norm. Would Gibbs begin to rue his decision? His owner wasn't a man who went back on his word or feared confrontations - the former Marine rather reveled in them. But if he started to  
see, that the battle against perceptions took more effort than Tony's presence on his team was worth, Tony feared it would slowly erode their relationship, turning it sour.

A slight tap to his chin pulled Tony out of the funk he had sunk into, making him look up and to the side, directly into the blue eyes he had grown to love very much. Gibbs didn't say anything. The plane was rolling and ready to take off so it was too loud for  
a conversation even if they’d wanted to talk. Tony hungrily took in the slight arch of Gibbs’ raised eyebrow and the way the skin crinkled around the corner of his eyes. It was how the man looked at him when he thought that Tony was being melodramatic.

Tony planted a small smile on his lips and nodded back. He would just have to do his best and prove to Gibbs that he was the only one who really counted - that he was worth every hassle.

.-#-.

“Our transport was crap. This-” Tony slowly turned around his axis and took in their accommodations. “This is worse.”

Gibbs was still outside trying to squeeze some information out of the Army Captain who had driven them here. Cait and McGee, after staring for a minute, simply nodded their heads in mute support.

It didn't matter that they had come as a surprise and that the base was overfull - the Army were organizing men going abroad to join their troops simultaneously as those who just returned on leave from the front lines. This hovel couldn't very well be the  
best the Garrison housing management had to offer, could it? Someone must’ve really hated NCIS’s involvement and this was a subtle - or not so subtle - dig at them. The two younger agents had told an eager Tony stories about bad base housing and ratty  
motels, but those places surely had more than a counter with a tiny, hastily-installed two plate oven with a coffee machine beside it, a camping table with three chairs and an old whiteboard all cramped into a room so small that they wouldn't be able to pass each other without getting very personal.

Tony could appreciate how good Cait looked, and McGee wasn't unattractive either. But the Feline would prefer not to have his face rearranged by a furious Cait after losing his balance and grabbing her breasts by accident, or to see his friend Tim die of  
mortification (and possibly fright about Gibbs' reaction) because they had to practically hug if they dared to try get to the door at the same time.

“Do I want to see the bedrooms?” McGee asked gloomily while pressing one of his precious laptops to his chest like a shield against reality.

Tony stuck his head into the small hallway that lead away from the combined kitchen-living room they were standing in, and did a quick count. “Tim, the question you should ask is how many bedrooms there are, because if one of these doors is leading to a  
bathroom, or what counts as one in this hovel, there are only two possible bedrooms available.”

He didn't mind sharing space with Gibbs, on the contrary, but-

“No. Way. I am not sharing a room with McGee!” Cait screeched before she put down her duffel bag and stormed out of the house to complain to Gibbs.

“You just said that to rile her up, right, Tony?” McGee had gone pale.

Tony shook his head. After one too many rounds with the fiery female Agent, he now shared some of the computer geek's caution about Cait. Even if he prided himself in concealing it much better, he wouldn't scare his friend like that. On a second thought,  
yes he would, but not today. “Don't worry, the boss will sort it out. Apart from the sleeping arrangement, and I thought the military was much too prude to force people to sleep together randomly like this, we can't possibly work here!”

Gibbs entered the house, took one look and turned around again. Hah, it seemed as if there were boundaries to even his frugality, Tony thought gleefully.

The younger agent and the Feline pressed themselves through the gap between the table and the counter to tug aside the old, faded lace curtain and watch what was going on in front of the little house. Their leader was standing beside the jeep and their driver  
was gesturing and waving his cell phone around. Cait had taken up position behind Gibbs as his outraged and glaring backup.

Which was, come to think of it, Tony's job. He rounded the table again, composed himself and then strode outside, just in time to see another jeep come to a screeching halt behind the first one and a slim figure climbing out. Tony got a look at her uniform  
and identified her as a Lieutenant Colonel - Mann, their contact, he presumed. The Army seemed to have some pretty girl-soldiers indeed. The way her hair was firmly tugged back into a hidden knot and her trim figure made her worth another look. And  
he wasn't the only one looking.

Tony's step faltered for a moment when he saw how Gibbs and that Lady took each other’s measure.

“Special Agent Gibbs, I am Lieutenant Colonel Mann, welcome to the US Army Garrison Miami. Captain Mayer informed me that there is some trouble with your accommodations?” she crisply asked, her eyes never leaving Gibbs' face.

“Ma'am,” The Boss greeted back, a little more polite than Tony wanted him to. “Not enough space to work, not enough beds for four people. Not enough information about why we are here,” he succinctly summed it up.

The Colonel crossed her hands behind her back, making her posture an unnecessary tad more uptight and pressing her shoulders back and her front out. “Mayer must have explained our current space shortage to you. I can offer you a bigger set of rooms at the main garrison complex after tomorrow but from what I remember about this house, it should do in the meantime. Surely a Marine,” she inclined her head to him “should be used to sharing with his male team member and Agent Todd can have the smaller  
room.”

“We are four, not three persons.” Gibbs' lips twitched and Tony wrinkled his forehead, knowing how much his boss liked a little challenge. Remembering the tall tales about L.J. Gibbs and his red heads, and after having to defend himself against one of them not  
too long ago, the younger man eyed this woman's hair with caution. It was more blonde than red, but the sun gave it a nice strawberry tint. Tony could feel his stomach tighten.

“I wondered, but surely you don't count your cat as a person?” Mann pursed her lips, clearly still puzzled about the eccentricities of these strangers. “I didn't understand in the first place when I read the note why you would take a cat with you on a case. I made  
sure that someone had included some cat food and a litter box in your quarters.”

A strangled sound came from Cait and Tony guessed that, when it was just them and no outsider, he was going to weather some ribbing about this.

Gibbs snorted and turned to the Feline, showing that he had been aware of him joining them outside. “Cat food and a litter box, how considerate. What do you think Tony?” Not waiting for an answer, Gibbs faced the Colonel again. “Feline with a capital F. No  
house cat.”

He'd rather pee in this woman's battle boots and serve her the cat food, in a nice Army helmet if she preferred, than contemplate even touching any of it. Tony knew that he was more touchy than normal, so he made himself not to twitch or react, and instead  
just directed his cat like eyes, the feature most telling his nature, as hard as he could at Mann.

To give her credit, she wasn't showing much of a reaction. Her eyes widened a tad and she looked at him as if she could see through his clothes and to what might be hidden  
beneath.

“Unfortunately someone didn't get that detail right. Very well, I will do my best to shuffle some people around, but I can't promise anything. You brought him along for comparison? I wondered why we were told that experts had to be called in.”

The information that was sent to them in advance had been sparse, and what Mann had just told them gave them one more hint at what was going on. Gibbs came to the same conclusion as Tony, but he was the one voicing it out loud. “So the body you found  
shows signs of being mauled by a big predator, possibly a cat.”

Mann nodded shortly. Tony wondered if the stick up her ass had to be removed surgically every evening before she could go to bed so that when she sat down on the edge of the mattress she wouldn’t injure herself.

“Our team's M.E., Dr. Mallard, is quite knowledgeable about Felines. We might have to send the body to be examined by him and our forensic scientist,” Tony stiffly said.

Mann contemplated that information for a minute. “I'm the one originally ordered to investigate this incident. It's true, however, that there isn't much information about Felines. We” she emphasized the word and sent a speaking, hard look at Gibbs, “might  
profit from the input of experts.”

“We won't bother with setting up if we're being relocated tomorrow. I want all of the new information you have.”

Tony saw Cait disappear out of the corner of his eyes into the small house, but he was too busy watching the Army Colonel and his boss butting heads. Given how much the boss loved joined investigations, input would be the least of the good Colonel's  
problems if she insisted on more cooperation than being kept in the loop - even if Gibbs seemed to find her interesting. On the other hand, this wasn't one of their bases and having a local as a front would buy them better reactions from the residents.

“I will send someone with the updated files and collect you tomorrow at 0600.” Mann spared Tony a polite nod and then strode to her vehicle.

“Ma'am!”

All three of them turned around and watched Cait swiftly walking to them, her smile showing a lot of lethal white. In one hand she held a standard white litter box with a pink hood, from the way it swung it had been filled, and in the other hand she held a plastic bag. “Here. Nice of you to go into such detail, but since we don't need it- It's cramped enough in there without these,” bag and box were cheerfully placed with flourish, which made the cans in the bag clatter, on the seat beside Mann and not in the back.

They watched her drive away silently.

.-#-.


	3. Respect each other’s opinions

“What do we know?” Gibbs had, after glaring hard at the rickety table, folded the thing and deftly put it outside in the front yard. He was now leaning against the counter with the rest of his team sitting in the chairs. They took their hard-backed field clipboards and arranged themselves in an improvised lecture room setting.   
  
McGee used scotch tape to hang a few documents on the whiteboard. “According to this time-line, two days ago one of the residents, Mrs. Greenham - wife of Sergeant George Greenham who is currently deployed - found the body of a unidentified  
Caucasian male behind her house at 2130. She called the MPs and told them that she saw a black panther run away. The body shows signs of decomposition and deep wounds that have been caused by animal teeth. Their M.E. has the corpse in his  
morgue.”  
  
The last pictures the computer geek added were photos of the body and it wasn't a pretty sight at all. Tony would take any bet that even the man's own mother would have problems identifying him. But one thing was clear: whoever he was, he hadn't died just two days ago. No chance, no how – there was too much decomposition, even to his untrained eyes.  
  
“Real big feline predators like panthers won't eat carrion unless they are starving to death,” Cait cautiously added, sparing a quick glance at Tony.  
  
Looking at gruesome pictures like these was one of the less appealing aspects of being in law enforcement. Tony fought his nausea by concentrating on the details and not the whole picture, and then pointed at a few things he found strange.  
  
“No, a hunting cat wouldn't. And this was not done out of hunger. Look at where the bite marks are - they are very random and none of the main muscle groups like the thighs seems to be missing, just torn apart. The first thing most predators dig into is the  
abdomen. Why spare energy for digesting something if your meal is halfway pre-made?”  
  
“Tony!” Cait scowled at him out of disgust, but Gibbs was listening intently.  
  
“The stomach area is not especially torn apart.”  
  
“Nope Boss, it isn't,” one of the first things Tony had voluntarily studied, after they had come for him and dragged him to the Stables, was every fucking detail he could find that made him different from real cats. He’d revel in the smallest differences he could find. Of course he had amassed a lot of other knowledge as a result – “Scavengers don't hunt down big prey; they prefer to take what is left. Even bone marrow if it comes down to it, but larger muscle masses that take longer to decompose are filling and preferred. No sane predator would just bite into carrion for the fun of it. Plus, a Feline's digestive tract works like that of a normal human. In a pinch both full humans and Felines can survive on fresh raw meat, but it is not healthy long term. Whatever, or whoever did that is not sane.”  
  
“Since black panthers are not native to Miami, and no circus or wildlife park has reported a missing big cat, this leaves us with a Feline, who is likely insane,” McGee glumly summed up for them. “Just great.”  
  
Gibbs studied the photos, his cold blue eyes analytical and dissecting. “Let's not jump to conclusions. We will talk to the witness and get that body sent back to DC. I want to know the cause of death since it's not listed in the report. Check the local news outside the base for animal attacks - if our attacker is insane, this wouldn't be the only sighting.”  
  
Phone calls were one of the few things they could actually do from their currently cramped quarters.  
  
.-#-.  
  
Faced with the bed shortage Tony had very reluctantly offered to spend the night on the floor and leave the big bedroom to Gibbs and McGee, since his tiger form would mind the hard linoleum floor in the living room the least out of the four of them. There  
would be no chance at getting intimate even without the space problem - the walls of this hovel looked paper thin. Though he would have loved to curl up beside Jethro, just to sleep. Tony was by now used to the soft snores and slight movements of a sleeping Gibbs and this would be the first night in four weeks they would spend apart.  
  
However, McGee had assured them that he could take the floor for one night. “Thank you very much for the offer Tony, but I'm a Scout Leader. I’m used to camping, so I’ll survive.”  
  
The two younger men shared a long look at that. ‘Better the floor than the Boss,’ Tim's eyes said. ‘The other way round for me,’ Tony's answered, and that was the end of the issue.  
  
Nobody was stupid enough to ask Cait if she wanted to take one for the team. The female agent might insist most of the time to be treated just like one of the boys, but that didn't prevent her from drawing the line at certain situations.  
  
The sounds of Cait getting ready for bed in the next room told Tony that he had been right to curse the cheap, thin-walled heap of a house, but for one night they would manage.  
  
Tony sniffed the blankets, ignoring the part incredulous, part bemused look Gibbs was throwing while observing him as the older man changed into his sleeping clothes. “They are clean.” was the final verdict.  
  
“Tony, the rest of the house is clean as well, just old and really small. That bathroom sparkled, before you set it under steam. The Army might not be the Marines or the Navy, but they do have a standard to uphold.”  
  
For peace’s sake Tony didn't recite some of the stories the other two agents had told him about Iguanas, cockroaches and filth on their own bases, and crawled under the blankets instead. “Do you think the President sees us as his personal Feline Criminal  
Investigative Squad? Might sound selfish of me, but I would prefer normal cases. Or as normal as they get anyways.” Though, mummies in bombs and fresh corpses in old graves, honestly...  
  
The bed dipped dangerously to one side when Gibbs joined him; it seemed as if the mattress wasn't the newest either.

“I hope not. Williams sent me some files and there are less than two dozen incidents a year across the States, most of them false alarms.  
Most cases will be handled by the usual division but if he needs military affiliated investigators...”  
  
“He'll call for us, and you just don't say no to the President,” Tony grumbled and took his preferred sleeping position, curling up against Gibbs’ back.  
  
He felt Gibbs laugh more than he heard it. “Well, I'm quite happy with not saying no on one special occasion.”  
  
“Yeah, me too,” Tony punched his lumpy but fresh smelling pillow into shape, a big smile on his face, before snuggling down. Take that, Colonel Mann.  
  
.-#-.  
  
Tony wasn't hiding. Honestly, he was not. Miami had the perfect weather to wear his sunglasses and it was a windy day so the NCIS cap had a purpose as well, keeping his bangs from being constantly blown into his face. He would cut it shorter, but it tended  
to grow back very fast whenever he morphed so there really wasn’t a point in doing that. Plus - and it was really a little side thought - interviewing people who were already freaked out about an insane jungle cat while looking at them with a pair of predator's eyes would just aggravate their witnesses needlessly wouldn't it?  
  
Promptly at six in the morning Colonel Mann sharply knocked on their door. After reassuring them that someone would collect their things and deliver them to their new quarters, she had divided them up into two groups and driven them to the house of  
their main witness. Tony made sure to be in the same car as his boss.  
  
Maybe Mrs. Greenham was used to early mornings. Maybe she had been expecting them, or maybe she was just too nervous to sleep, but she opened her door promptly after the first knock. She was in her forties, her eyes were red rimmed and she was  
wringing her hands.  
  
Being the wife of a soldier wasn't easy, as danger was her partner's constant companion, but that was a different sort of stress than finding mutilated human remains in your backyard. Tony could understand why she was rattled. The print outs of photos  
from the file had been bad enough. He luckily had had some warning about what he would see beforehand and, most importantly, didn't have to smell it as well. If he had learned something in his short time at NCIS, it was that death was an olfactory  
nightmare – especially for a Feline that had been blessed with a very sharp nose. Standing in the front yard of this house, Tony could still smell something in the air that made the short fur on his neck stand in irritation, even after the corpse had been  
long removed.  
  
Tony watched, his nose tingling, how his boss calmly tried to get more details out of the nervous woman. Gibbs was always more considerate when questioning dependents of soldiers than with anyone else, and his gruff but honest behavior tended to make them open up to him. It didn't take the former Marine long to make Mrs. Greenham lead them out to where she had first spotted the corpse and walk them through everything she had done from that point on. One thing she insisted on was that she hadn't  
dreamed the black panther; she showed them where he had sat and in what direction he had run away after spotting her. According to the report, Army CID hadn't found any paw prints.  
  
The ground around the house consisted of hard-baked earth, carefully trimmed and tended winter lawn, cement and asphalt. The lack of prints was not exactly a surprise.  
  
“What do you hope to find, Gibbs?” Mann asked after their witness had offered to get them something to drink and gone back into her house to fetch the beverages. The Colonel had been silent until now, just observed the NCIS team and the way they  
worked. “We did our best to find and collect what little evidence there was, and there is nothing left here.”  
  
“I want to extend the perimeter search. Nobody is missing from the base but that body had to have came from somewhere. This is not where he died,” Gibbs answered, noting the lack of sufficient blood on the ground when the body was found.  
  
“Nobody had been reported missing during the last two weeks that matched the description of the dead man,” McGee added.  
  
“Your own people commented on the poor state of his nails and that the clothes he wore were old and ragged. It would point to a vagrant or homeless stranger passing through-” was Cait's contribution. “I wonder how he got into a gated community  
without being noticed, but if he hid in the vicinity we might be able to find his hiding place or at least someone who remembered seeing him.”  
  
Tony hesitated and gulped as he shuffled his feet, which caught his owner’s attention. An idea that had popped into his head wouldn’t make him happy, but it might just work. Ideas that worked would make Gibbs a happier lead agent.  
  
“Tony?”  
  
Great. Now all eyes were on him.  
  
“Boss. Give me a sec,” Tony didn't wait for a reaction; instead, he bolted to the house, taking off his sunglasses on his way in.  
  
“Mrs. Greenham? I haven't introduced myself, have I?” his friendly smile had made coeds melt in college without him even trying, and he hoped that his nervousness didn't spoil the effect. Not that he wanted to make her melt, but according to his buddies the  
goofy smile made him seem harmless too, not just attractive.  
  
The lady of the house was standing at her sink, a big cup in her left hand and a towel in the other. “No, but...” she trailed off and stared at him.  
  
“Can I ask you for a favor?” Tony hastily asked and it made her eyebrows rise. “I need to use your bathroom. Eh, that came out wrong.”  
  
Suddenly an amused grin broke out on the woman's face and transformed the rather bland, scared housewife into a humorous, lively woman. “Your team leader is an old hand at his job, but you, you are quite new, hmm?”  
  
“Yeah, but I'm a genuinely nice guy and wouldn't hurt a fly, so if I ask you not to freak, you won't, yes? You see, it's like this...”  
  
.-#-.  
  
Tony followed Mrs. Greenham out of the house, regally holding his head high and making sure that he didn't trip her. The boss would scold him if he made the nice lady spill the good coffee.  
  
Of course, his teammates had seen him in his tiger form before, albeit only for those first two days at work. After that he had always accompanied his boss in human form and restricted the tiger to their home and back yard. Mann was the only one new to this appearance, and it had her standing there for a very satisfying second with her mouth wide open.  
  
“Tony wanted me to take a look at his tiger and then tell you differences. The cat I saw was smaller than him by a good bit. It is hard to judge, him being a tiger and the other one a panther, but the shoulder was not as high and the limbs were gangly, like  
with a younger animal. And I remember now that the panther was clumsy, stumbling over his own paws,” Mrs. Greenham serenely offered her tray to the waiting men and women. “Your coffee? I made it just like my George likes it.”  
  
McGee grinned proudly as if Tony's idea had been his brainchild. “Nice idea Tony!”  
  
The Feline couldn't join in his friend's good mood. It wasn't the Junior Agent's nose that had to stand the reek that permeated the surroundings; transforming into his tiger had made his sense of smell sharper. Even the strong coffee, or the Colonel's rampaging hormones - the tiger spared her a pointed glare - could cover the sickly sweet odor of rotting flesh.  
  
“Is he sniffing the ground? Like a hound?” Mann came closer, interested, and bent down as if she could judge better that way.  
  
Tony took a few, hasty steps back to give her a wide berth to check another spot, and then ran back to the house to morph in private. He had found out what he had hoped to, so there was no reason to torment his other form's superior senses any longer.  
  
A hound! How dare she! That's why he had been reluctant to use his tiger nose - he wasn't NCIS’s answer to Lassie, faithfully sniffing and purring out clues. “I am not a hound, Colonel. My nose is better than a human's, but it’s nowhere near as advanced  
as a dog's. That corpse was days old and we already know that. It smelled sick, and the stink is nearly overwhelming, covering everything else. All I could get was that there was indeed another Feline. Felines have a specific scent pile different from a cat's, and it is a smell I recognize easily,” after nearly seven years in his cat form, he should.  
  
“So I wasn't imagining things!” relieved triumph colored Mrs. Greenham's voice; the prospect of her brain playing tricks on her had obviously troubled her greatly.  
  
“Yes, but the scent is strongest over there, by the fence where you saw it, and not here where the body was found. The Feline is a male and, from the pheromones in his scent, not fully grown. He would have left more near the corpse if he'd really taken the time to rip into it,” and that possibility was something that had troubled Tony greatly. To meet a Feline who was so far gone that he did something completely against their nature… the thought made him sick to his stomach.  
  
Gibbs narrowed his eyes, his nod barely discernible, but the warm approval it conveyed made Tony feel like the king of the world. Now if he could get that look with conventional means as well…  
  
“Unfortunately, we only have your word that a Feline is involved. It helps to narrow down the possibilities, but without solid evidence, it won't impress any court. That being said, it's a starting point,” Mann said, finally, as she straightened up.  
  
.-#-.


	4. Be open about your needs but respect your partner's as well.

“Tony? May I ask you a question?”

“You may ask me another one, sure, Agent Todd,” they were sitting in the roomy common room of their new and quite luxurious VIP quarters, waiting for Abby to contact them via internet. 

“Ha ha, aren't we funny today. Why did Gibbs make Mann stop at the store to buy you sandwiches?”

How to answer her question about that particular quirk of Gibbs, jokingly or earnest? Special Agent Overprotective had bought him something to eat, and then watched like a hawk while his Feline devoured two of them hungrily, just like any other time after Tony had morphed.

Cait and Tony had been relegated to sit and watch over the computer and the other half of their team was out scouting for essentials. Gibbs went searching for coffee, which hadn't been included in the kitchen to Gibbs' incredulous dismay, and McGee for a cable to connect his laptops. His own had been left behind in DC during his mad scramble to pack.

Tony tilted his head and tried to judge how interested Cait really was about his answer. With Cait that wasn't always obvious; sometimes the more casual she behaved the more she wanted to know, and sometimes it was the other way around. This time she was  
concentrating on him with her profiler face on, which annoyed Tony – he didn't want to feel like a subject of her study.

“Morphing takes energy. A lot.”

“Sounds logical, but you are very able to get food yourself. We all know it, your desk at work is snack central.”

It was embarrassing that Gibbs still didn't trust Tony fully when it came to caring for his own needs. He had developed this habit of making personally sure that Tony wasn't starving on his watch because of those couple of times when he had been hungry  
and didn’t want to bother his boss. Tony would rather spend a week on filing duty than sharing that with the nosy female agent. Shrugging his shoulders was all Tony managed as an answer at first. He silently thanked his Italian forefathers who had, as  
a tiny compensation for that damned mutation, also gifted him with a slightly darker complexion that hid blushes very well. 

“It's a quirk, I don't mind. That's all you want to know?”

Cait played with her hair, flipping it back over her shoulders. “Strange quirk. No, it was more of a warm up. What will happen to the kid when we find him?”

“Depends. If we can prove he is sane, he goes to the Stables. Sorry, habit, my dear personal trainer Agent Pope-Leyton informed me that it's called Feline Center now. If we can't prove that he is mentally stable, they will have to put him down.”

In the mean time, they would have to try and narrow down their search, and hope that the Feline was one of the teenagers that lived around the base. The search was slow-going - it was a big housing complex, there were a lot of families with kids living nearby  
and a lot of them seemed to be relocating to other bases at the moment.

It had taken Tony nearly half an hour to explain to Mann and Gibbs earlier, much to their disappointment, that although his nose might be good enough to pick up another Feline’s scent, it’s just not built for tracking. He could detect the presence of the other  
Feline if he knew or suspected where the panther had been, but he didn't have the experience and scent stamina to do it for long or follow a trail. His brain didn't work like that of a hound, damn it. The part of a dog’s brain that was used to recognize scent  
underwent much development as they mature. Yet they still needed a lot of extra training before they could be used for police or rescue work. Tony had neither. If he came face to face with a fellow Feline while he was a tiger, then sure, his nose would tell him, but there was no way he would be able to walk around on four paws and just conveniently lead them to the panther by scent.

“Which option do you think would be preferable?”

Tony had been lost in his thoughts and needed a second to process what Cait had asked. The file he was holding slipped out of his fingers and he couldn't help but rear back. The expression on Tony's face made Cait hastily clarify her question.

“I didn't mean that like it sounded; of course we all want that boy to be sane and living but.... The way you react to this case has got me thinking. You are pretty negative about your past history, Tony, and very matter-of-factly about finding the Feline, not showing compassion or hoping that he might escape. I couldn’t help but wonder why you seem so cold about this? You seem to care more about pleasing Gibbs than to worry about that boy.”

Dear God, her clarification made it sound even worse! Tony might not want to let his thoughts go there, for it would take away his focus, but that in no way meant that he didn’t feel sorry for the young Feline. 

“For the record, Agent Todd, I prefer to find him sane and sound. I didn't like the old administration at the Center; they were a sick bunch. But that doesn't mean that I would ever think being dead is better than being a locked-up Feline, for fucks sake!” 

The Profiler had struggled from the moment they met to make sense of him, and he understood that just fine. The way she always observed with him was not subtle, nor the comments she sometimes shot at him. The fact that Tony didn’t fit her neat profile about how someone with his background should behave always seemed to throw her for a loop; he got that too, but that was her problem to deal with, not his. Sometimes he really wondered about this woman's profiling skills, or maybe there was something about him that interfered with her perception. Or, as his old professor in criminal psychology would say: never try to profile people you are in constant contact with. You'll get it wrong.

“I should have formulated that differently...” Cait murmured.

She shouldn't have thought it in the first place. Tony stood up, irritated at Cait, and began to pace while ranting. His voice got louder the longer his strides got. “So what, instead of finding him I should try to get my fellow Feline free, before we even know  
what is going on here exactly? Loyalty among the clawed and furry?”

“Tony. Tony, stop. I didn't mean it like that, OK? I got the impression that you loathe the old Stables and thought you wouldn't wish living like that on anyone else, but I see how you’re trying very hard to find that boy anyway. We’ve learned a lot more about that  
Feline solely because of you. But you're not showing any doubts about your help being instrumental in getting another person into the same situation you were in, and it made me wonder.”

“Would you let a mother, after she killed the perp who raped her child, go free?” Tony stopped his angry pacing and fixed her with a pointed glare. Maybe she would get it this way; it wasn't a good metaphor but in a pinch it should do.

Now it was Agent Todd's turn to be startled. “No, of course not. I'll feel for her, but I'm here to uphold the law and that would...”

Tony exercised an exaggerated bow and then let himself fall into the couch again, as far away from Cait as he could. At the moment he didn't want to interact with her anymore; her perceptions about his character were insulting. Just because he wasn't a certified Law Enforcement Officer didn't mean that he didn't understand duty.

The tense silence between them served to highlight the electronic ping on the open laptop.

“Oh shit, I hope it just started and hasn't gone on for a while,” Tony exclaimed and hastily scrambled to sit in front of the portable computer.

“I hope so too, for both of you.”

The harsh grumble from the door made both occupants of the room wince and Tony wondered how long Gibbs had been standing in the doorway, listening to their spat. Gibbs face betrayed nothing but irritation – whether it was directed at them or at the  
laptop was not discernable but Tony had hoped for the later. Explaining about why he was pissed at Cait was not something he wanted to do.

“Get that beeping contraption going before Abs explodes with frustration. Or do we need to wait for McGee to get somewhere with that?”

“Eh, no. No need for McGee,” Tony clicked a few symbols and started the secure video conference program. “Even you could probably do it Boss,” he added, still trying to find his balance.

“Yeah?” Gibbs asked with deceptive softness.

Cait raised her hands in the air as if to say that their blabbermouth Feline was on his own here.

Ouch. But then again, Tony hadn’t have time to consider the fact that his dear technophobic boss had difficulties with operating even some of the least complicated features on his cell phone. That is, if nobody else was free to be bullied into doing it for  
him.

“Two double clicks, one code to punch in, adjusting the web-cam and another double click to open the connection. Yup, you could do it on your own. With a detailed instruction sheet,” Tony directed his brightest, most shining grin at Gibbs, who was making his way over to the computer. 

A hand connected with the back of his head, but not hard. Tony didn't seem to be in too much trouble.

“Let's see what Abby found out. Open the connection,” their boss ordered.

They arranged themselves in front of the monitor - the men sitting on the couch, Cait standing behind them - and waited for the window with Abby's face to pop up.

“Guys, I thought you forgot about me! Where's Tim?”

“Abby!” Tony greeted back. “Tim’s still out, but if he's not back within the hour we will send out a search party to rescue him from the big bad Army tech support guys.”

Gibbs didn't waste time with social niceties. “Case now, chat when we're back in DC. What have ya got Abs?”

The video connection was not the best and wavered for a moment. It made the Goth's smiling dark lips even bigger and darker like a slash across her face before jumping back to normal. “Ducky's here too. We got your stinky corpse.”

Ducky came into the picture from the left, still in his scrubs but thankfully without the gloves on. Tony shuddered when he thought about his first meeting with the M.E. “The Miami Medical Examiner did a fine job, I have to take more time to finish the autopsy, but I agree with his first tentative conclusion. You read them?”

“Colonel Mann informed us this morning. Organ failure,” Tony summed up the unpleasant conversation with the Colonel. Despite admitting that someone who knew more about Felines should take a look, she would still prefer Ducky to travel here, instead of relinquishing the body to him. The argument that Dr. Mallard already took time off from his regular cases to help out and shouldn't be held up more hadn't counted much in her yes.

Mann had been strictly professional in her interactions with the NCIS team, except for her inability to keep her eyes off of Gibbs, which annoyed Tony. But, since his partner didn't return the looks after that first face-off, it was more of a negative feeling lingering in the background, overshadowed by this investigation.

“That poor man died due to pulmonary phthisis, commonly known as consumption or Tuberculosis. There's a famous opera, La Traviata by Guiseppe Verdi, where the heroine suffers from...” a sharp growl from Gibbs steered the talkative M.E. back on topic. MTB is a long, drawn out and sever but not necessarily deadly illness, if treated correctly. Too much alcohol and no health care didn't help with his condition, but I would rule it death by natural causes unless someone held him in a cell and denied him medical assistance.”

“No chance that he died of an animal attack?” Gibbs wanted him to clarify.

“None at all. All those tears and bites where made post mortem, approximately two days after death. It is hard to tell the exact time due to exposure to the elements and the general poor condition of the corpse. We found insect activity that helped us narrow   
the time frame down.”

Abby had nodded along and now piped up to add her own findings. “And Bossman, those teeth marks? They’re fake.”

“Fake?” the three in Miami asked in unison.

“Yep. Fake. No saliva in the wounds. Someone used a cast of a predator’s set of teeth or something similar. I'm trying to reconstruct a dental profile but it will take some time. That body is kind of... squishy. Not many clear marks to work with.”

Tony hesitated for a moment. “Can you tell if the marks are from an adult predator's dentition?”

A second window popped up with a computer simulation that showed green lines forming a model to a set of teeth. “Yeah, they are. Why?”

“Just another piece of the puzzle, Abby. It looks to me like someone is setting an adolescent Feline up for the fall,” Tony answered and rubbed the back of his neck. This case was giving him headaches.

“You'll get the scumbags and make them regret it! I'll go back and find more goodies for you,” Abby faithfully cheered her team on with a salute, and after Gibbs nodded at her she closed the connection from her end.

They would get the perp who faked the attack, but what would they do about the Feline? “Why go to all this trouble? Simply calling the Feline Division would get the boy removed ASAP. Setting him up to be put down is extreme,” Tony contemplated aloud. 

“Revenge? Maybe he bit someone?” Cait offered as a possible explanation.

Gibbs looked at the blank screen. “Don't speculate, investigate. Tony, go find McGee and help him sort through those animal attack reports. We still can't rule them out fully and the perp might have tried to go the animal control route before taking a risk with framing the boy for murder. It IS an extreme first step.”

Cait smiled. “And this way we cover my theory as well. I'll continue researching families with male teenagers who live near Mrs. Greenham's house.”

Tony sent her a dark look. He could only hope that her profiler skills were more accurate when it came to strangers.

.-#-.


	5. Share your dreams

Checking the base’s files and reports for possible big predator attacks would’ve been easier than checking the ones from outside the base, but they couldn't restrict themselves to the garrison. Whatever the motives were for faking an attack, it wouldn’t necessarily have to have its roots on the base.   
  
Miami was a huge city and apparently full of people with no common sense. Some of them were truly terminally stupid because - hello!? - any person while on a tour through the Everglades with two working brain cells wouldn’t have stuck their hand in the water after being told that there were alligators just waiting for a nice snack . That, and a large number of people who really shouldn't own pets they could not control.  
  
There, another one for the no pile. Lots and lots of stupid people, and even Tim's nifty search algorithm couldn't prevent the need for checking everything it spat out. Tony shifted a little bit on the mattress and removed a pen from under his thigh. He was sitting on the bed Indian style while clad in his boxers.  
  
“Within the last six months we have a bunch of dog attacks, twelve ferrets, three parrots, a horde of stupid tourists baiting alligators, but no unidentified injuries caused by large predatory felines apart from one of the captive lions in the zoo trying to eat the vet. And that was a failed attack - the cat was half blind. I understand the poor lion, I hate needles too,” sifting through newspaper articles and animal control reports had taken most of the evening and Tony still wasn’t finished. Right now, he was sitting on the bed with McGee's second laptop. Thank the Army for their wireless Internet, at least he was sitting comfortably on the bed instead of in front of a desk.  
  
“Just try not to bite Ducky, he would get very upset and we would never hear the end of it,”   
  
Tony clicked on another link and didn't look up when he heard a deep voice commenting. “I wouldn't do that, I like Ducky! Though I can't say the same about that one sadistic doctor at the ER.”  
  
Gibbs had gone to the bathroom and Tony could tell the minute he returned, smelling clean like fresh soap. In contrast to last night's tiny closet masquerading as a bathroom, this one deserved the word room. It was very nice and spacious, with a corner tub that was un-militarily big and just begged to be used by a tired Feline, as soon as Tim, who had claimed the spot after Gibbs this evening, came out.  
  
“Then avoid getting scraped so severely by tumbling down ravines that you need a tetanus shot. Actually, don't tumble down ravines, period.” Gibbs drily commented.  
  
Tony growled at another report of a dog bite, adding it to his ‘no’ pile. He only looked up when strong, blunt fingers came into his field of vision, resolutely saved his files, and, with a careless disregard for how to power down a laptop properly, pushed the power button until the screen went black.  
  
“Hey!” Tony turned his head. “Don’t complain to me tomorrow for not finishing that search.”  
   
All of the other words he had planned to say didn't make it out because there were suddenly more important things on his mind. Important things like the intense blue eyes with blown pupils looking at him, and the warm, minty breath feathering over his face. Gibbs removed the laptop from Tony's suddenly nerveless fingers and put it on the nightstand where it was joined by papers and pens to be forgotten a second later.  
  
“I thought we agreed that, when we're on the job...” Tony uttered but it was only a token protest. He was much too busy leaning towards the arm that was dragging him onto the middle of the bed.  
  
“New rule: when we're away on a case for longer than a day, our temporary bedroom counts like home.”  
  
“No working on cases allowed,” Tony recounted the basic sub-rule for being home and then nearly moaned when he felt a firm touch pressing against an aching spot on his neck. Those blunt and callused fingers should be licensed as precision tools on their own! It was something Tony had found out their - was it the third? - evening together when the clever appendages had found every knot in his back, then proceeded to mercilessly and firmly stroke the muscles into submission. Even if Tony was tense and unsure at letting this man, who was both a stranger and his new owner, touch him.  
  
It was so much better now when their traditional evening massage wasn't restricted to the back and could be reciprocated at will. It was less clinical and less fashioned for efficiency, and neither man had ever complained about that change. Tony could now react with abandon, pressing back, moaning and twisting. Something he had, not always successful, avoided at the beginning of their relationship in fear of sending the wrong signals.  
  
One of the first things Tony had done after Tim had set up an e-mail account for his use was to reluctantly send some inquiries to Major Williams, the Head of the Feline Center. Voluntarily staying in cat form for seven years and then changing back for the first time because Gibbs smelled safe had wreaked havoc on his body. He couldn't explain why he had to constantly hold back from seeking contact with the gruff former marine, in cat form as well as in human form. Sex had been the furthest from his conscious mind then; he had been more interested in getting his footing in a completely new situation. Being constantly touchy-feely for no apparent reason had thus freaked him out.  
  
Williams had never treated him badly and had been responding to questions Gibbs asked him, so it couldn't hurt to try pumping the Major for information himself. Plus the Center already knew so many intimate and embarrassing details about Tony, one more question wasn't really going to weight much against Tony thinking that he was on a fast track to the loony bin.  
  
The explanation he got for his cravings? A combination of being touch-starved and responding to basic Feline instincts. Tony still found it kind of embarrassing that he melted under Gibbs' touch - craved it in fact. Heightened responsiveness due to his nerves being more sensitive from morphing or not, surely no adult man would freely admit that he sometimes preferred being petted than to have an orgasm?   
  
“What are you thinking about so hard?”  
  
Gibbs’ voice in his ear called Tony back into the present and the younger man twisted, purposefully using the opportunity to rub against Gibbs, until he was laying flush to his bed partner and could nibble on his jawline, teasing it a little bit with the tip of his tongue. “I was thinking how much I like to be touched by you and touch you back.” 

  
Gibbs had a nice laugh. He should really use it more often. “Same here Tony. But in contrast to you, I don't purr.”  
  
“Hey!” Tony sank his teeth just a little bit into his lover's shoulder and growled at him in retaliation for that verbal tease.  
  
Gibbs wrestled the Feline fully on his back and pinned him down, a combative light in his eyes. Tony hesitated for a bit - this was a new aspect to their bedroom games - but then he laughed and shoved back. He bucked playfully and enjoyed the feeling of is  
erect cock meeting an answering hardness, just separated by two layers of soft cotton underwear. Why not enjoy this game? One word in the right serious intonation and Jethro would let him go. The man had good instincts for where their boundaries lay. On the contrary, sometimes Tony thought he was too careful.  
  
Tony was not a shrinking violet; he didn't want to be, and here was an opportunity to prove it.  
  
The soft surface and the sheets and blankets tangled with their legs made for a different set up than the mats at the gym they usually used for hand-to-hand combat, but some of the moves Gibbs had drilled into him... Oh yes, they were just as effective here, as the grinning Tony found out. “Hah! See, I'm getting better,” he gloated and looked down at Gibbs, mischief in his eyes, breath going fast. In the gym he would never dare to press his belly against the firm stomach the older agent normally hid under those loose-fitting clothes of his. Or press a kiss against Gibbs’ skin.  
  
Gibbs hiding his body was, on second thought, not the worst idea. Otherwise women like Colonel Mann would be even more interested in undressing Gibbs not only with their eyes. Maybe he should stop window-shopping and imagining Jethro in those nicer shirts.  
  
“Still not good enough, Tony. Not when you let yourself be distracted.” Gibbs smirked and the bunching muscles of the body between his thighs were the only other warning the Feline got before he found himself flipped and on his stomach with a living, warm, yet unyielding weight pressing him into the soft sheets.  
  
Tony stiffened for a second, his breath caught and he had to make a conscious effort to release it. These weren't clinical, merciless hands restraining him with no way out. Not at all. He could buck or ask Gibbs to loosen his hold, but there was always levity   
to use to get out of sticky situations. It wouldn't lead to uncomfortable questions either. 

“If I say uncle, will you let me go?”  
  
Gibbs shifted his weight which reduced the pressure of his cock against Tony's hip. “Do you want me to?”  
  
“Hm. Let me think. With the other head.” With the position he was in, it took a little effort to turn his face and look over the shoulder at Gibbs. Still combative but not aggressive. Good. Flushed face and the normally strict mouth relaxed, the smirk humorous and not mocking. No agenda beyond a little playtime. Tony loved seeing him like this and would like to do so without getting a stiff neck, at least that's what he told himself was the main reason. “You really need me helpless on my front to feel secure, Marine?”  
  
“Nope.”

Tony yelped as he was once again firmly flipped and pinned, this time not so marine-enemy standard like at all. Because, really, the instructors at boot camp wouldn't condone the slithering between the mock captive's thighs, would they? Or the slow undulation to steal breath and chase away serious thoughts. Or the kissing of the captive to take away their will to struggle. Although it was a very successful strategy, Tony had no intention to escape capture at all, or do anything else for that matter, except to wind one arm around his captor to direct where he should press against and place the other arm around Gibbs’neck to pull him down for another kiss. He still had air left, shouldn't a good marine finish what he had started?  
  
No one could say that Jethro Gibbs wasn't thorough, and Tony was a very attentive and eager recruit. And if he demanded to reciprocate and have that followed by a repeat performance, it was to make sure he got every detail right.  
  
Afterward they lay beside each other, sweaty and satisfied, underwear soiled and discarded into a corner of the room. Tony began to stroke Gibbs’ shoulder lazily without a goal in mind when his fingers came to the shallow teeth mark he had left there earlier. It wasn't the first he had ever given to his lover. It was already fading and would be gone by morning, but it still disturbed the younger man.  
  
“You're thinking about that boy?” Gibbs had correctly guessed why he had gone from relaxed and satisfied to tense and thoughtful all of a sudden.  
  
“Uh hum,” Tony rubbed his cheek against the mark as if to erase it, and then leaned back against the fingers carding through his tousled hair. The bite along with Cait's clumsy attempts at profiling his motivations and intentions, were ruining his nice afterglow. He should be ready to fall asleep now, Tony thought, with the gigantic bathtub and the case forgotten, instead of contemplating his navel, damn it.  
  
First they had to close the case; and then, maybe, he could do something he had shoved away time and time again in favor of enjoying his new life. “Would you... Maybe…”  
  
“What?” fingers deftly massaged his neck, mirrored by Tony's own that was circling, pressing touches over Gibbs’ left shoulder.  
  
“When this is over I want to visit the Center. Do you think that would be permissible? Williams seems to be a reasonable chap and I want to know how the others are doing. I want… to know what's been changing there.”  
  
H'dira, a female lynx-feline, had been the only one who had gone with an owner between the time Williams started as Head of Stables and when Tony himself left. The woman who had chosen her had smelled safe so he dearly hoped H'dira was alright and happy. The others... Not many of the occupants in his wing had known him before his Virgin Morph so any communications between them had been hampered by his inability to speak human, but some of them he had came to count as friends.  
  
“Unfortunately, we'll probably be bringing them a new resident with our visit,” Gibbs, with his reluctance about the way he had gotten Tony, had to be just as torn about their duty as the Feline himself.  
  
“I know,” Tony murmured and shared a slow, a little sad kiss with his owner.  
  
.-#-.


	6. Expect some road bumps

“Boss, I talked to the guards about any rumors concerning big black cats, and one of them sent me an e-mail,” McGee told them over breakfast. “No actual sighting of panthers but more than one person has seen a big, black-furred animal near the Government Leased Housing Complex in Homestead around 132 Avenue. Always at night but they just assumed it was a big dog. Animal control was called at one point to catch the stray but they didn't find anything.”

Cait was still sleep tousled and cranky and more interested in drinking her tea than forming complete sentences. “Big dog, small panther. Whatever.”

“Narrow down our list of teenagers to those living in that area,” Gibbs ordered.

McGee held up a printout. “Already done. Eight families with a male teenage child.”

“Good, we better find him soon,” was Tony's opinion and he mulishly stared back at Cait when she raised an eyebrow at his declaration.

She put her teacup into the sink. “I thought we agreed that he didn't bite into that dead body.”

“No, but that means whoever tried to set him up may try again, and this time use more direct methods,” Gibbs spoke aloud what Tony was thinking but afraid to say.

Word must have gotten around about the grizzly find. About the outsiders investigating what had happened, and that they were some kind of experts. People gossiped, so the perp had to have heard about them already.

Tony didn't bother with his sunglasses today and had used some gel he had begged off of McGee to style his hair into short spikes that accentuated the color without making it look too wild. Gibbs watched him and nodded approvingly. Since their esteemed leader was one of the most fashion blind individuals Tony had ever met, he could guess that Gibbs’ thoughts had gone in the same direction as Tony's had. If they somehow managed to find the young panther-Feline today, it couldn't hurt if Tony looked like a self-confident Feline, and as far away from meek and downtrodden as possible, to assure the poor kid that they would take him seriously. The style suited him, Tony decided after a look in the mirror. Maybe he should buy some of that gel.

The NCIS team, Colonel Mann and one of her men who would drive the second car split in two groups and hurried to visit the eight households before the kids left for school. The first two families on Gibbs and Tony's list were a bust. None of the teenagers showed any signs of having an activated Feline gene, but they got a confirmation of the big black animal sighting from a very serious young Staff Sergeant.

At the third house, they were greeted by a familiar face. Captain Mayer, their driver from the first day, opened the door. A little girl was sitting behind him on the floor, trying, with high concentration on her face but little success, to tie her shoelaces on her own, and a toddler was peeking at the visitors from behind a small wardrobe. Her brown eyes got very round when she looked at Tony and she removed her thumb from her mouth to point at him.

“Glowy kitty eyes!”

Tony grinned at her, making sure not to show too much of his slightly pointy teeth.

“You are very observant, little lady,” Gibbs praised her and then concentrated on the Captain. “May we speak with you for a moment?”

“I was on my way to work.” The soldier hesitantly said and went over to his older daughter, stroking over her head.

Colonel Mann shouldered past Tony. “Don't worry Jeffrey, I will talk with Major McLaury. This is really important. Is Andrea around?”

“She's upstairs. It's my turn getting the little ones to Kindergarten.”

The small hallway got crowded with the Colonel, Gibbs and Tony standing inside the doorframe. It was a nice house, not overly decorated, with good furniture and as clean as a house with small children living in it could ever get - at least that's what Tony assumed.

The older girl had managed to tangle her fingers up with the shoelaces. Gibbs bent down and, after getting permission from the father, helped her tie them correctly. 

“Quite the battle scar. You're going to be a Pirate?” he gently asked and Tony followed his gaze. There was a red scar running down the girl's right forearm, just visible under the rolled up sleeve of her little pink pullover.

“I wanna be a princess, not a pirate!” she scowled up at him, and for one short second an expression of pain Tony had never seen before appeared on Gibbs' face, just to disappear again with the next blink as if it had never been there at all. 

“A driver lost control of his car two months ago and collided with my wife's. He was transporting some new windows. Nobody was seriously harmed but the glass shards caused some damage. The scar will fade,” the father explained nervously, as if he feared they would blame him for his daughter's injury.

“I haven't heard about that! Andrea must’ve been so frightened. The other kids are all right too?” Mann had told them that she was friendly with the Captain's wife, as much as that was possible with a subordinate's dependents.

“Andrea and Jessamine were on the other side of the car and Alec wasn't with them so we got away with a blue eye. What can I help you with?” His eyes, just as brown as his daughter's, kept coming back to stare at Tony again and again, so the Feline felt it was all right to speak up and answer the question.

“We're searching for more information. You heard about what Mrs Greenham found?” he asked, conscious of the curious little faces observing him.

Mayer shooed his two daughters, dirty street shoes on their feet or not, into the living room and closed the door. “It's all over the base and the neighborhood. Wild animals tore it apart.”

“No. Someone tried to make it look like a Feline was responsible. You know about that human mutation?” Tony asked and kept a close eye on the man's reaction but he got none. Not even a small trace of astonishment or curiosity.

“Not really, no. Would it make someone look like you do?” the officer boldly asked.

Tony smiled a little bit wider than he had for the toddler, aware that he wasn't the only one being suspicious about this too tense man. “Depends, Felines are different in appearance just like every other human, only with a little bit of extras thrown in. Tiger for me, lion for most, can be lynx, leopard... or panther.”

The sound of footsteps on the stairs made all of them look up and they watched as Mrs. Mayer came down.

“Andy, they are here about that dead man. Have you heard that someone tried to make it look like a Feline did it?”

“Good morning. Lydia said something about it on the phone, but why are they here?”

Tony knew that Gibbs would most likely be angry at what he was about to say, but he decided to take a risk, provoke more of a reaction from the pair. “We’re trying to find the criminal before he or she has the opportunity to try again directly at killing the young Feline.” Yep, Gibbs was glaring at him for giving away so much information.

Both parents had gone pale at that, and the Captain was resting his palm against the closed door to the living room.

“Kill?” Andrea Mayer asked shrilly.

“Kill.” Gibbs answered firmly, playing the cards Tony had dealt him, and his eyes promised a lecture as soon as they were out of here. “Murder attempt by proxy. Only insane Felines would bite into a days-old corpse, and would need to be dealt with when found. The polite expression is being put down instead of killed, but that's what would have happened to the young Feline if we'd taken the bait.”

The woman wrung her hands and her gaze drifted to where her husband's hand was pressing against the door.

“So, you see how important it is that we find that young Feline? Have you seen a panther around or heard anything about one at all?”

“No, no I haven't.” she stuttered and went to stand beside the Captain. “Dear, I’ll drive the little ones to school, so you can get to the office on time.”

“Alec isn't home today?” Mann asked after the son this family had according to her knowledge of this family.

“He stayed with a friend overnight and won't be home until later. They are working on a project for the science fair and have a free day. If we hear anything about a panther, we will contact you, if you give us a number,” Jeffrey Mayer motioned them to step outside his home but none of them budged.

If he had been in tiger form Tony would bet that he would be smelling the cold sweat and another Feline's scent permeating the rooms right now. From the way Gibbs’ eyes were glittering, he knew it too but what could they do? They had no hard evidence pointing at this family. The youngest correctly labeling his eyes as 'kitty', not 'doggy' or 'birdy, the tension in the air and his nose - none of those would get them a warrant to search for more clues.

“Captain Mayer, we don't mean your son any harm, if he is indeed the Feline we are searching for,” Tony tried again.

Andrea Mayer had tears in her eyes. “I researched it yesterday after Lydia called me, so don't try to tell me lies! If he was one of these Felines, and I didn’t say my Alec is, you would take him away to become some sort of concubine and we would never see him again!”

“Andy, shh,” her husband tried to calm her down while glaring at the now unwelcome visitors.

Gibbs pointed at Tony. “Does he look like a concubine to you? He's part of my team!”

“So, what? You use him to flush out other kids to take away? Congratulations. Now leave my home, please. I don't want someone like you here,” Mayer pointed at the door again and defiantly glared at them till they were all outside.

Tony turned around before the last step, heart pounding in his throat, his hands balled to fists. “Sir, I know there are a lot of rumors and stupid myths going around. I won’t say that all that goes on in the Feline Center is good and peachy, but there are dangers out here for someone with that… ability, if he stays unsupervised. Not to mention that someone is out there gunning for him. His nature is working against him. Morphing illness, shifts gone wrong, slightly different physiology… and if he gets injured he can't get the correct treatment at the hospital...”

The door closed in his face.

“Well, that didn't go well.” Mann drily commented.

Now he felt like the biggest heel on earth. Tony rubbed over his brows and let his head hang. “At least we've got the right family. I bet he was in that car accident and morphed for the first time then.”

Gibbs growled and the Colonel looked taken aback by his manners. “I made some phone calls and talked with a Major Williams. He sounds like a decent man. But still, I can't fault the couple for trying to protect their kid. Would you do any differently if you were them, Agent Gibbs?”

The silver-haired man stonily stared at her until she couldn't stand the silence anymore and started the car.

“Why didn't you tell the Mayers that the administration of SSFD has changed for the better?” The Colonel asked Tony, likely in a calculated try to get them back on topic.

“Because I might do my best to find that kid but I don't want to give them false hope, Ma'am. Heads of Center change, Presidents change. Who says the next won’t be worse than the last?” Tony answered her but his eyes searched for the expression in Gibbs' eyes via the rear view mirror, expecting to still read anger or disappointment there, but all he saw was a pointed interest that made him squirm.

“I’ll call some of my people to shadow the family in case they try to run, or, if Alec is indeed a Feline, to keep him safe from attackers,” Mann told them with a straight face. “Do you want to visit the fourth on the list, just to be on the safe side?”

Gibbs nodded.

.-#-.


	7. Share your sorrows

“It doesn’t matter if your gut is telling you that you are on the right path, don't gamble like that without my permission again,” was all Gibbs said after Mann returned them to their quarters and they were alone in the kitchen. McGee and Cait's half of the list seemed to be taking longer than theirs.   
  
Tony listlessly bit into one of the pre-made sandwiches he had found in the refrigerator and stared at his files, just as Gibbs was doing with some of his own beside him. The younger man wasn't permitted to use the NCIS network and AFIS, since Sheppard had never officially cleared him for that. A new director hadn’t been appointed yet, so no one could sign off on his clearance and grant him permission. But then trivial things like this had never stopped their team leader from handing his own codes to Tony and sending him to work.  
  
Nothing new came up.  
  
From here on out it would be a waiting game as they had no leads left until new information filtered in. Their dead body was still a John Doe and Abby had sent them a crushed sounding e-mail about Ducky not finding any more clues. The Goth was, in her own words, flummoxed at how the body had ended up in an Army garrison gated living area, since the prints were not in the system.  
  
All that talking about SSFD, along with a new e-mail in his inbox just now, had reminded Tony about that infernal questionnaire, which added to the his bad conscience. Not about his failure to hand it in on time though; more like reminding him about aspects of his situation that he really didn't like. And, hey, was that an attachment to Agent Pope-Leyton's delightful message? Wonderful, now he could really push the hard copy through a shredder; the thoughtful bureaucrats had sent him an electronic version. He was so thankful about their thoroughness, really.  
  
“If you were in your tiger form you’d be snarling at the screen,” Gibbs had his reading glasses on and was watching him over the rims. Though it seemed like as soon as he had the younger man's attention he became aware of those hated little helpers and swiped them off his nose.  
  
Tony thought those readers emphasized Gibbs’ good looks, but he wasn’t about to say so.  
  
“It's nothing boss, junk mail,” he wasn't really lying, per se. Not at all. And he really shouldn't feel remorse just because Gibbs was looking at him piercingly.  
  
“In your official work inbox? Should ask McGee to set your spam filter settings higher.”  
  
“And here I thought you wouldn’t even know what that is!”  
  
“Tony, everyone knows what that is after the sixth idiotic penis enlargement ad.”  
  
Tony grinned. He was about to open his mouth and say something, but shut it again when Gibbs held up his index finger in warning. Yep, OK. Pointing out aloud the obvious lack of need for such things would be considered bad taste.  
  
Come afternoon the team was slowly going stir crazy from the lack of new leads, bad vibrations between Tony and Cait, a prowling Gibbs and the feeling of being helpless in general. A guard from downstairs calling up to say that they had visitors made for a welcome break, but the tension was back and rose to new heights when they heard the names of their visitors.  
  
Gibbs opened the door and waved Jeffrey Mayer and his son in. Tony took one look at the scared boy and released a long breath. Yeah, they had found their young Feline.  
  
Captain Mayer had his hands on his son’s shoulders, keeping him firmly at his front. “I thought about what you said - about the dangers - and looked some things up...” He cleared his throat after his voice broke then looked helplessly at them.  
  
Gangly, too thin and with pitch black hair that was unruly and a little bit too long, 15 year-old Alec Mayer looked like a typical early teen as long as you didn't take the time to look him in the eyes. No kid should have eyes like that - scared, wary. And they didn't look very healthy, rims looking watery red and eyeballs irritated.  
  
Gibbs looked at Tony and then dipped his head in the direction of their young visitor. No way he hadn't guessed about the boy's nature correctly as well, and he wanted the only other Feline in the room to break the ice.  
  
Tony slowly approached the pair, not smiling - this was not a situation for smiles - and trying desperately to look non-threatening and confident. Like he actually knew what he was doing. The kid was scared enough; he didn't need Tony to be scared too. “Colored contact lenses are a b- ahem, are horrible, aren't they? You wanna take them out? Might feel better. Our eyes are more sensitive than other human's and don't take well to lenses. For me it felt like trying to put sandpaper on the one time I tried.”  
  
He could see Captain Mayer's fingers tightening on the bony shoulders and it took a while before Alec moved, raising his hands and fiddling with his face. When he blinked at them again it was with golden, slid-pupilled eyes. No wonder his little sister had identified Tony's correctly.  
  
“Do you want to wash your eyes out with water?” Tony asked.  
  
Alec looked at the older Feline, studied him, his gaze watery. He slowly shook his head no and took a small step back, nearer to his father. It had been an honest offer from Tony, but he could see that they shouldn't try to separate father and son so soon. “You want to ask us questions?”  
  
“Yeah.” Mayer croaked and then turned to Gibbs. “Swear on your honor as a Marine that you will do your best for my boy.”  
  
Gibbs nodded sharply. “I swear that we will do our best to get Alec through this. I will do everything I can so he will have the best possible future.” Blue eyes wandered to the boy as if he wanted to add something but then refrained.  
  
From the desperate and resigned expression in the father's eyes he had understood the restriction. “Is there any way that Alec can stay with us? He isn't a danger, he just has an unusual condition, like those kids who are albinos or have glass bones.”  
  
“I contacted Major Williams yesterday - he is Head of the Feline Center. We'll talk to him over video link so you can get answers I don't know from him directly,” Gibbs turned halfway around and gave McGee the order to call Williams, before pointing at the coat rack. “Take off your coats, sit down and we will lay out your options. You want Alec to be part of this discussion? You have my word that we won't take him away the second you turn your back or he goes to another room.”  
  
“I'm not a baby, I want to know.” Alec demanded, speaking with the unstable voice of a typical teenage boy.  
  
“That’s all right.” Gibbs calmly waited for them to be ready and then led the way to the living room. The other two members had prepared the sitting area, placing glasses, cups, bottles of juice and water and a thermos with coffee on the low table, and then retreated. The most threatening-looking thing was the open laptop.  
  
Gibbs sat down on one side in one of the armchairs while Tony took the other, leaving the couch to the Mayers. “First, we guessed that it was that car accident that activated Alec's Feline genes.”  
  
“One... one of the windows the other car was transporting shattered and pinned him into the front seat, cutting into his clothes. It was a miracle that the glass didn't do more than a few small lacerations. There were shards everywhere though, and some were threatening to pierce his face. I was there - it was in front of our house, the windows were intended for our new neighbors,” the father haltingly described how he had ran to the car and found his wife in shock, crying and staring at the adolescent black panther beside her, with the girls shrieking in the back. The other driver was unconscious, and no one else had seen the accident. Mayer knew enough about Felines to realize that someone would take his son away if he had been seen in cat form. The father had done his best to calm the panicking young panther down, carried him into the house and bandaged the cuts Alec received. The family pretended that Alec was never in the car in the first place, and, thanks to Mayer's paramedic training, had avoided the need for a doctor.  
  
“Do you have any rashes on your body, headaches, other things that hurt? Tony wasn’t trying to scare you when he talked with your father. A lot can go wrong when you morph for the first time.” Gibbs asked the boy after the father had fallen silent.  
  
“No, none. But why do you have to take me away? I won’t hurt anyone. Running around as a panther is fun and kind of cool!” Alec demanded to know.  
  
“Yeah, it is. I like playing in the snow a lot as a tiger too,” Tony decided that he should answer that question. “But you're not an adult and lack... well, discipline. If you get really, really angry you might loose control and just imagine what a panther can do that a person can't-”  
  
“I'd be able to defend my family if someone wants to hurt them! I'm kind of like Wolverine now.”  
  
The adults shared a sad look.  
  
“I don't doubt that you’d make a good protector, Alec, but people don't know the difference between a Feline and a real panther that might attack them. People are more dangerous for you now, rather than the other way round. Did you sneak out of the house and go for a run? Once or twice? Just to try out your cat?” Gibbs firmly stared at the boy with that knowing look on his face, and held out till Alec slowly nodded.  
  
“Mum was really upset when I got home and she caught me, tore into me like you wouldn't believe.”  
  
The boy's father groaned beside him and rubbed his hands over his eyes.  
  
“Alec, someone saw you and reported you to animal control. Just imagine what could have happened if a neighbor had a gun nearby and shot at you,” Gibbs tried to reason with the boy.  
  
“That's what mum said but I ...” Alec tapered off.  
  
You're a teenager, Tony sighed to himself. And teenagers were too sure of their own prowess and immortality to listen to reason.  
  
Gibbs resumed his questioning. “We know that you didn't hurt that man, but Mrs. Greenham saw you in panther form at her place. What were you doing there?”  
  
“I don't know. I don't remember that night, just a big headache. I didn't bite the man?” Alec imploringly looked at the silver haired agent. “I really can't remember!”  
  
“No, you didn't. We have found a lot of evidence that the scene was staged,” Gibbs reassured the nervous boy.  
  
Something occurred to Tony and he asked, one hand reaching for his cell phone before he remembered that Ducky wasn't with them, so he couldn’t help draw blood from the boy. “Did you transform again between that day and now? How many times? It's really important.”  
  
“Only once, I think, when I came home I changed back to human. It's all...fuzzy. But I haven’t done it since then. Mum and Dad kept close. The whole neighborhood was swarming with people.” Alec said slowly.  
  
“You said you've had medic training, correct, Captain Mayer? Would you be able to draw some blood from Alec for us?” And then they would have to pray that there was still something to be found, Tony sighed inwardly. If a drug had been used to knock the boy out, it would be hard to detect in Felines because of the increased metabolism, especially if they shifted a lot. Whoever was behind this, they had thought of everything.  
  
“Who else knows that you are a Feline, Alec?” Tony asked.  
  
Captain Mayer tugged his son close to his side defensively. “Just the family. Maybe someone I didn't see witnessed the accident?”  
  
“It’s possible. The person has to be either malicious or has a grudge against you,” Gibbs tapped his fingers on the tables' surface. “Anyone else you can think of who would want to take revenge for something - a slight or a black mark - that held them back for a promotion?”  
  
Again, a no. The agents and Tony would have to dig through his background and history even more diligently. Finding the boy had cut down the possibilities but not the workload.  
  
Cait's phone rang. After listening she held it out for Gibbs wordlessly and began to set up the laptop for a video conference.  
  
The Captain asked Gibbs to stay during his conference with Major Williams. The agent nodded, shoulders stiff, and positioned himself behind the couch where the Army officer sat, while the other adults attempted to lead the protesting boy away.  
  
Alec only went willingly to the kitchen after his father shooed him away, where two agents and an adult Feline took to stand around the mulishly pouting, silent teenager. Gibbs had sent his team with him. All four of them were feeling like useless protagonists while trying not to think about what was being discussed in the living room. At least Cait and Tim weren't better than him at handling Alec. Tony watched as Cait, her overly friendly tone of voice adding another coat of neon paint to the elephant in the room, first tried to ask the young Feline about his school classes only to break off in mid-sentence and switch to hobbies instead. Not that Alec answered her anyway; his eyes were fixated on the closed door.  
  
One of the flunkies standing outside of their suite must have informed Hollis Mann about their visitors; Gibbs would never do so voluntarily. Tony hadn't even thought about it. Midway through another round of trying to engage Alec in a conversation or to entice him with something to eat, the good Colonel arrived at their doorstep and loudly demanded to know why they hadn't called her and what they were doing with her officer.  
  
Thankfully she was not early enough to intrude on the conference from hell in the living room. When the four in the kitchen, drawn by an angry female voice, dared to stick their noses into the livingroom, the laptop on the table had been closed and Mann was standing beside the table, trying to convince Gibbs of something, with emphasis on tried. Tony took one look at the rigid posture of his owner, seeing the way the line between his eyebrows deepened just so, and internally winced. Mann would have to call a battalion of her Army grunts for help and even then they would only be able to move Gibbs in pieces.  
  
Mann was in the lead agent's face. Drill Instructors would disagree, but volume never added anything but headaches to an argument, in Tony's opinion. “Be reasonable! You were called in to help. You have no right to take one of my men into custody. I'll take the Captain and his son into protective custody and release him to Major Williams when he arrives. I won't have you bully my man!”  
  
“Protection detail. Not custody. Captain Mayer agreed.” Gibbs spat back. He spared an angry glare towards the group at the kitchen door, sharing and spreading the foul mood a bit more.  
  
“It's against every rule. You are not Army CID. I called the Feline Division on my way over and they agree with me that I am to protect them until someone officially takes custody of Alec Mayer.” Mann, another point against her in Tony's eyes, wasn't paying attention to the new onlookers to her little display.  
  
“Call again. The Mayers stay with me. Major Williams approved.”  
  
“You bet I will call, Special Agent Gibbs. And where will you put them, on the couch? How comfy.”  
  
There wasn't an end in sight to their argument and Tony had had enough. He put his hands on the wide-eyed teenager's back and shoved him in the direction of the small hallway leading to the bedrooms, demonstratively not watching for a reaction. “Hey Boss!” He loudly and cheerfully called out over his shoulder. “I'll show Alec here that spare bedroom while you discuss the details of how best to protect him with Colonel Mann. That room is easily big enough for him and his father. Isn't it great that we didn't use it anyway? No stuff to remove and shift around.”  
  
.-#-.


	8. Don't let the sun go down on your anger

“What the hell did you do that for!”  
  
Tony reared back at the low, aggressive growl that greeted him as soon as he entered his own bedroom that evening. He had known, from being ignored during the meal, never touched once, not even casually, that something was wrong but he hadn't expected this kind of acid reprimand.  
  
Gibbs was standing by the window and turned in his direction when Tony walked in.  
  
“Boss?”  
  
“Drawing attention to our arrangements in front of the Mayers was insensitive and I expected better of you! They have enough on their plate; they don't need their noses shoved into the ownership stuff too.”  
  
Having Gibbs call their relationship an ‘arrangement’ hurt. “I thought it would shorten your spat with the Colonel by pointing out we had room enough.”  
  
Gibbs cut him off. “No, you didn't think and I could have handled that without your clumsy help. That's the second time today that you’ve overstepped your boundaries.”  
  
“It did shut her up,” Tony raised his chin defiantly. He didn't know what bug crawled up Gibbs' ass. His mood had worsened progressively during the day, but Tony didn't deserve being treated like that.  
  
“It embarrassed Alec and his father! Stop being jealous of Hollis Mann and start thinking about other people for a change.”  
  
He hadn't been the one fighting in front of a distressed kid and father, it had been Gibbs and Mann who were too occupied by their fight for control to remember Alec watching them. “I am not jealous of the Colonel! You say that I'm your lover, your partner t  
home, and I trust you. Yeah,I was kind of taken aback when you didn't stop her sniffing you but hey, you are taken, not dead and she's a babe.”  
  
Tony saw the muscles in Gibbs' jaw worked.  
  
“There you go again about private stuff that has nothing to do with making sure that we clear this damn case. I promised Jeffrey Mayer my support.”  
  
“You're not the only one who wants to help them. I do too!” it was bad enough what Cait thought about him, but to think that Gibbs might share some of her doubts and think him so self-centered… the notion twisted and clawed at something deep inside Tony's chest.  
  
“Then learn to think before you open your big mouth! You didn't see it; you didn't even bother to observe how your remark affected others. The Captain was eying first our door and then the apartment door like he wanted to snatch his boy and then run for Mexico, and I wouldn’t blame him. Any parent would. If my daughter had that fucked up gene...”  
  
Tony threw up his hands. “You know what? I'm going to remove me and my fucked up gene, take a long shower, and you calm down in the meantime.” he turned on his heel, snatched a bathrobe on the way out. No deep voice called out, to call him back.  
  
When he returned Gibbs was lying on his side of the bed, reading glasses on his nose and shuffling some loose papers around. The older man wasn't looking up when Tony entered, and continued to ignore his presence completely. Tony slipped under the sheets and turned his back to his partner. Tim had warned him about how extra touchy and vicious Gibbs could get whenever kids were involved. Everything else took the backseat and Gibbs proved what the second-B was for in spades, Tim had said. maybe - hopefully - this would blow over soon. The Feline decided to let the sound of vehicles coming and going outside the window drown out the doubts and reprimands still ringing in his ears.  
  
Before sleep claimed him another thought poked him but he shoved it away. Curiously Gibbs had used the word daughter instead of child. Tony wasn't stupid enough to poke that particular sleeping dragon with personal questions not connected to the case  No sir, this Feline's mum didn't bear no fool.  
  
But that didn't mean Tony couldn't wonder.  
  
.-#-.  
  
“They’ve left us behind,” Tony grumbled and sat down on the bed, wriggling his eyebrows at the tense panther-feline. He bounced a little on the bed and then drew his legs under him Indian style. Tony's order for the day had been not to let the boy out of his sight, and since Alec had refused to leave his room... If Mohammed couldn't come to the mountain, the mountain had to come to Mohammed. And then be obnoxious enough so said Mohammed wouldn’t ignore him.  
  
Why had Tony be the one to stay behind, just to keep an eye on Alec? Not that his guardian skills would really be needed, not with two M.P.s, courtesy of Colonel Mann, standing in front of the suite. But it did gave the Felines an opportunity for shop talk. That would be a more convincing reason, Tony thought morosely, than Gibbs being happy to not see his mug for awhile. Surely the former marine wouldn't have left him with the kid if he really thought Tony was self-centered and would be insensitive to the boy?  
  
“Let's hear the potentially embarrassing questions you didn't want to ask with your dad sitting next you. C’mon, let’s have it. Tails jammed in doors? The difficulties of using door clinks without scratching the wood? Why it's not a good idea to stick your nose into something smelly? Shoot.”  
  
Alec gave him an incredulous, disbelieved look. His dad had gone with the other agents to speak with Mrs. Mayer and to collect some essentials for Alec and himself. This way they would have pieces of home in DC until more could be shipped and the rest of the family relocated.

“You're strange.”  
  
Tony let go of the forced cheerfulness and let himself fall backwards til he was lying on the cold bed. “Or you can stare at walls. But let me tell you, they are not very interesting here. Too Army clean - no offense - no cracks or lines you can try to interpret and make into funny images, just boring plain white paint,” Tony should know. He had spent half the night staring at the walls, unable to find anything by the faint artificial light filtering in from the outside.  
  
“Really, really strange.”

As if fearing that whatever was bugging the older Feline would be contagious, the boy didn't join him on the bed. Tony could hear Alec walk to the corner furthest away from him and sit down before voicing what was really on his mind. “What’s it really like at the Center? Was that guy bullshiting when he told me it was more like a school for the gifted? It sounds like Professor Xavier's school for mutants.”  
  
“You're a big X-men fan, huh? Yesterday Wolverine, now X.” Tony had always been more a Dick Tracy and Magnum P.I. fan, superhero comics had never done much for him. Though, Hugh Jackman had been yummy in a scruffy, growling kind of way when he played the claw-wielding mutant in that movie. Halle Berry hadn't been bad either, even if it wasn't her best role by far.  
  
“They found me in my early twenties. For three years they tried to make me catch up to the others with the help of tutors so I've got no personal experience with the school itself. I know that they like the kids to be sporty - there's a basketball court. And lots of art and music lessons,” which Tony sucked at. Guitar was the only musical instrument he had ever mastered. Violin had been a catastrophe; his fingers had never managed to seduce the right notes out of the strings.  
  
It had been fun to coach the kids in sports. His personal trainers had let him do it once and again, so he would feel more connected and content interacting with his fellow Felines - until they decided he was a bad influence. The ones who grew up at the Center their entire lives were a little otherworldly to Tony's eyes, with no idea what was going on in the bigger world, but mostly they were just teenagers and kids who wanted to play and flirt and be little hormonal nuisances. Maybe one day Williams would succeed in actually transforming the Center into something like Professor X's school, hopefully without the vigilant aspect and people wanting to kill the students.  
  
“I prefer football to basketball,” Alec pondered. Minutes went by until he spoke up again. “Was I really lucky 'cause nothing bad happened when I morphed - that is the correct word, yes? - for the first time, or is that an excuse for all that owned by State crap? Hell, if it is you won't tell me the truth anyway,” he added sulkily.  
  
“Hey!” The last thing Tony wanted to be called today, with all this shit going on and people - mostly Gibbs - looking at him like he was incompetent, was a liar. That was just... no. “I only lie to criminals and scumbags! I wouldn't lie to you. I would tell you if I don't want to answer, but I wouldn't lie. The White House did some crappy things with Felines that are not PG rated, all right? But that bit of information about health was true. Some kids, and even adults, if they are ill or not fit enough, don't survive the first morph - and that is the correct word, yep. I'm not shitting you.”  
  
Alec snorted and Tony, miserable and frustrated, pressed his head against the soft comforter, seeking… he didn't know what exactly. He shied away from analyzing and let his mind wander instead.  
  
Tony pondered which of the more harmless things would appeal to a teenager's mind. “The Center is like a separate world, a little bit. For example, there are some tiled rooms filled with kitty litter for Felines who got stuck in cat form. If you get caught doing something against the rules, your punishment would literally be a shitty job for cleaning them. And one of my... friends had to stay in his cat form after he broke his leg because morphing back to human form could made it worse. Doctors who are allowed to treat Felines require special training.” Tony glared at the ceiling. “I am not lying.” Just not telling a teenager about staying in cat form himself and using those damn litter rooms for seven whole years - that was personal. And could be bad precedence.  
  
Seven years in his tiger form had prevented a lot of the more unpleasant possibilities from happening to him - he told himself that every time when he had been tempted to morph back. Alec shouldn't need that protection.  
  
“So if I ask you about that sex stuff I read about on the internet, about being the property of someone who can do anything they want with their Feline, you'll tell me the truth too?”  
  
Wham! And they were back to the one thing no one really knew how to talk about.

  
How exactly would he try to explain that to a fourteen-year-old boy, Tony miserably thought. “Told ya, they pulled some non-PG stuff but Williams has been trying to sort it out. You're not old enough to worry about it.”  
  
“But it could be bad?” Alec's voice sounded very small.  
  
Tony sighed. Promises were promises, so he would have to answer, wouldn't he? And the boy needed to know - just not everything. “Owners are people, people can be assholes. It just sucks when you can't do anything about it. But nobody will force a teenager into anything; that's against the law, whether you’re Feline or not. Williams and the President are working on better way to protect adult Felines. You've got years until adult rules would apply to you. Your dad and Gibbs are doing everything they can so it would never need to.”  
  
“Shit. I hope they succeed. No wonder Dad nearly went through the roof.” Alec took some time to digest the answer. “You seem to like that older Special Agent, Gibbs, and dad says he's your owner. Must be tough sometimes, he looks strict. And wow, can he growl and stare! Not a guy I want to be mad at me.”  
  
“Yeah. Pissed-off Gibbs is not good when you are his target.” Understatement, thy name is Anthony. Tony clenched his fingers into the comforter and forced his thoughts into another direction. It looked like the adolescent had done a little bit of research on pages not meant for minors. So much for responsible parenting and supervising your offspring’s Internet activity. He remembered words Andrea Mayer had flung at them.

“Your mom showed you what she found or did you follow the links she used?”  
  
“No, I googled them myself and used Dad's computer. Don't know where Mum got her intel. There was no browser history to follow. Mom never wipes her browser history; I don't think she knows how to. She just waits til the machine does the automatic weekly one. One week gets you a pretty long list but that's Dad's way of keeping track of what pages I look at.”  
  
Again minutes went by without either of them saying anything.  
  
“Rooms set up like giant litter boxes? Really?” Alec mused.  
  
“Really.” Tony hoped that the others were coming back soon. He tried to formulate what was on his mind carefully. “You know, this sucks but it could be worse.”  
  
“Like I could be terminally ill-worse, world ending-worse or something like that? Whatever.”  
  
And here Tony had been angry with Cait for being such a klutz with her formulations. He wasn't doing much better but somehow he couldn't feel too bad about it at the moment. He was kind of getting angry with Alec instead and wouldn't that get him scolded again? Ah fuck you all, Tony thought and went for a little dose of reality, Tony style.  
  
“Your dad loves you and would take on the world to keep you! I saw the look on his face. He's a proud man but he would get down on his knees and beg - that's how much you mean to him. He didn't call the Center when you first morphed, he didn't once ask about that huge ass reward that's been around for centuries for handing over Felines, and he tried and would continue to stay near you no matter what. You're not alone. Think about that for a change.” Alec's dad didn't even consider the possibility that his Feline son would be affiliated with an influential person in the future - what a nice euphemism - as a potential way into someone's good graces and bank account.  
  
Alec shuffled to his feet, fast and clumsy, and Tony could guess without opening his eyes by the thumps he heard that the wall was the recipient of some of the boy's anger by way of feet or fists.  
  
“Yeah, he is great, he totally is. But....shit shit shit! I want to be normal. Normal! Damn it!”  
  
Tony lay on the bed and listened while the teenager pummeled the wall and silently raged against an unfair world. He let him be for a moment, and when one of the guards stuck his head into the room to see what all the commotion was about, the older Feline sat up and waved him off. Tony picked up one of the decorative pillows and held it out for the boy to pummel instead of the wall. A few bruises were all right; broken bones were not.  
  
Alec had the right to go a little crazy and who was Tony to tell him otherwise. And if anyone complained about scrapped knuckles they could go fuck themselves with Gibbs giving the demonstration how to do it properly, that bastard.  
  
.-#-.  
  
Alec was in the bathroom, cleaning up his face and hands, when the laptop on the couch table began to peep and demand attention. Tony sat down, keeping one eye and ear on the youngster, and pushed a few buttons. Abby's friendly face was a welcomed diversion.  
  
“Hi Tonyboy! I heard that you found the Feline, and I thought I should try this way first before calling on the cell, since you might be in today. Is the Bossman around?”  
  
“Nope, he's out. You've got news?”  
  
The second window with the green lines depicting a dentition popped up again, much more complete than the last time.  
  
“Does it look familiar?” Abby had to be bouncing on her toes in excitement by the way her picture swayed.  
  
“Abby, I'm no zoologist but I can guess it's some feline predator's.”  
  
“Yep, but it's not one you'll ever meet.” The window split in the middle and the picture of a dentition appeared, was over-layed with green lines who were then turned and moved over to the first graphic. It was a perfect match but for the overlong canines of  
the second dentition.  
  
Tony blinked. “I might be an amateur, but that's strange, isn't it? A nearly perfect match.”  
  
“Too true! I compared what I had to scans of feline predators in a database and this popped up. And I wasn't kidding about the impossibility of you meeting that animal - it's a saber tooth tiger. We found faint scraps of Polyurethane resin, which is used for high quality replicas of fossils in the wounds. You can order these replicas easily via the Internet; they are teaching supplies. I'm checking but there are lots of possibilities for this model since it's very popular. But still cool, isn't it?” she preened.  
  
“Very cool Abby! So someone filed down the long canines to make it a better match.”

  
Abby was visibly proud of her accomplishments and Tony was easily ready to praise her. This information had the potential to help them a lot.  
  
“How’s the junior Feline doing?”  
  
Tony tilted his head and listened. Something clattered into the washbasin and Alec could be heard cursing. “One sec. Be back soon, Abby.” There should be nothing in there that Alec could use to harm himself, short of smashing the mirror. But from what Tony knew about the things a hormonal time bomb like Alec could come up with, it was better to check. Tony took a look into the bathroom and then pulled back his head again. From the poisonous glare his nosiness had earned him, his help might be needed, but not wanted. Trying to clean and bandage ones own hands was tricky.  
  
“Not too bad, he's found an outlet for his frustration first in a wall, then a pillow. Both won and I'm not telling him that exercises in controlled violence are never a way to deal. So shoot me.” Abby wasn't the one he wanted to say that to, but she had asked, so Tony answered. Cait and the boss had been ignoring him today so far, and Tim, after a scared look from one to the other, had sent Tony a compassionate smile then ran after the other agents.  
  
“Better a pillow than a face,” was Abby's only comment.  
  
Something Alec told him niggled at him, made him turn it around a few times in his head. Tony should phone the team but he could imagine that his suspicions, without a good reasoning and lots of evidence, would only get him deeper into trouble. Gibbs had made it clear that he didn't want Tony to act on his instincts any longer. “Abby, would you check something for me?”  
  
“Shoot.”  
  
“This might sound stupid, I don't know much about how this works, but can you check what web pages someone accessed, what they downloaded?”  
  
“Not easily under normal circumstances. But if that person’s computer is online and not heavily protected, it's doable. To whom do you want me to turn spy mistress onto?”  
  
“Mayer residence. I'll call Tim, he's there at the moment, and ask him to turn the home computer on to help you with your mojo. We can say that we want to make sure nobody else tried to access it, if someone asks. I'll give them your update at the same  
time.”  
  
Abby was nibbling at her lower lip, eyes sad. “You think that...”  
  
Tony grimaced. He really hoped he was wrong. “Just do that for me, yes?”  
  
An hour later, Alec was sleeping - or mopping and pretending to sleep in his room, Tony couldn't tell the difference - the laptop pinged again and it was a subdued Abby that appeared in the video conference window. The team was still out; Captain Mayer had taken them to his office at work after they’d finished at his home.  
  
“Andrea Mayer ordered that dentition online a week ago. I found the recipe on her hard drive and the payment on her personal account. She didn't even try to conceal it. That's horrible Tony! Why would she do something like that?”  
  
Now it was Tony who wanted to pummel something. Of course she didn’t try to conceal it; she had no reason for doing so. If someone else had been sent instead of Gibbs' team, they probably wouldn’t have discovered the fake in the first place. Army CID would have swallowed the fake scene and she would have gotten away with it. Tony closed his eyes and pinched his nose with his fingers. “I don't know why, Abby. You called the boss?”  
  
“Thought you should do it, it was your hunch.”  
  
The Feline slowly opened his eyes again and stared at the Goth for a long time till she started to squirm.  
  
“Coward.” Tony accused.  
  
“Pot, hi my name is kettle. You are the one who wants to be a field agent. Me? I'm happy being a lab rat.”  
  
“I'll remind you about this the next time you insist on being a Goddess. Aren't deities supposed to be Teflon coated? Unlike mortal quasi-agents-slash-consultants,” and while his mouth was talking, his brain was already elsewhere. Tony reached for his NCIS issued, standard field agent cell phone and glared at the innocent little gizmo.  
  
Abby waved sadly at him and closed the connection.  
  
“Boss? Abby and I found out something.”  
  
.-#-.  
  
All of the team members watched, with varying degrees of openly shown sadness, as Captain Mayer entered the bedroom where Alec was hiding, closing the door softly behind him. None of them wanted to be in his shoes, having to explain why the young boy’s family would be breaking apart even further.  
  
Andrea Mayer had indeed been the one to set her son up, and when confronted with the recipe they had found, she didn't even try to deny it. She just broke down and sobbed. Her husband had made her swear after Alec’s first morph that she wouldn't contact the Center for any information, but she had feared for her daughters. When Alec's shenanigans as a panther hadn't been sufficient to get him noticed by the authority and she had found her littlest playing with Alec in panther form like he was a plushy, she had gone nearly insane with worry. Finding some dead vagrant on her way home a week ago had been, in her eyes, a windfall - nobody would ignore a dead body. She transported the corpse in the trunk of her car, and ordered the dentition for express delivery. The knockout drug - a very strong sleeping pill - was smuggled into Alec's bottle of coke. She knew that her irrepressible teenager would try to slip out again in cat form as soon as she turned her back.  
  
Depending on whether she ended up with a compassionate judge or not, she was looking at time in prison for defiling a corpse at the least and attempted murder at worst. Tony didn't know what sentence he wished for. She really could have been the cause for her son being put down for something he didn't do, but a harsher sentence would fracture the family even more.  
  
Cait sighed and pushed her hands into her pockets. “She feared Alec would bite her or the toddlers, maybe even infect them with the same disease he has.”  
  
Rich businessmen with more money than sense wouldn't touch Felines with a ten foot pole if there was any question of the furriness being contagious. “It's a genetic mutation, not a contagious disease. We are not Werewolves,” Tony corrected her absentmindedly, while his eyes busily stroked over every tense and angry line he could make out on his owner's face.  
  
Gibbs wasn't saying anything at all. His eyes, not their usual sharp blue but dull and pained, were fixated on the closed door. He had been very professional but compassionate while handling the afternoon's meltdown but it looked like that effort had eaten up all his reserves. His Feline watched him closely until Cait's angry voice made Tony redirect his attention.  
  
“She didn't know that, Tony!” Cait shot back at him, pulled her left hand out of the pocket and waved aggressively. “I would be freaking out as well if someone transformed without warning into a panther next to me. Disease, mutation, magic or whatever. That information is just one among the many other half truths and full out lies that is floating around, how would she know which one is real with the Center being so secretive?”  
  
“Hey!” The woman's tone of voice made Tony's hackles rise defensively. “Not my fault! I didn't make those regulations, you should be blaming some long dead President!”  
  
“Tony, Cait, this is really not a good time to scratch each others eyes out. We have to organize our files and stuff. Major Williams will come and collect us tomorrow to take us back to DC and we better be ready. Plus, the Mayers might hear us,” Tim tried to placate his irate colleagues but what really made them take a step back was the sound of a door being slammed shut. Gibbs had left the room and disappeared into his own bedroom and sanctuary.  
  
Now it was Tony's turn to stare at the newly erected barrier, his fight with Cait forgotten. He’s worried about his lover, but his boss might, again, bite his head off if he dared to comfort him. Sleeping beside him like this would be uncomfortable as hell. Gibbs hadn't said anything, positive or negative, about Tony cracking their case wide open. Or it might be the end result that was making the older man behave so coldly. It was probably arrogant of him to assign himself the focal point of Gibbs’ cold fury, but Tony had a feeling that Gibbs could do without seeing his face and everything it seemed to remind him of for a little while.  
  
That night he transformed into his tiger form and slept in the kitchen under the table voluntarily, out of way and out of mind of everyone who might stumble over him. The way he saw it the away-bedroom-is-home rule had been removed from the list of  Gibbs' rules with prejudice. Tony understood giving someone space to sort himself out - he really did - and he wouldn’t want to rock the boat, but if his lover tried to keep this up at their real home, Tony would kick his ass. Or at least try to.  
  
.-#-.


	9. Always try to respect each other’s spaces

Any other day Tony would have loved to travel in a freaking high-end LearJet, even one sponsored by the Center. Because, really, a luxurious plane full of shiny gizmos? A mere mortal didn't get to travel in one of those often if ever.

He had dreamt about flying in one of these planes since he was a little boy, ever since he saw a stupid jingle on TV with a leggy blonde leaning back into a white leather chair, looking out of the little window and sipping from a champagne flute. Tony didn't remember the advertised product - it wasn't important - but he had been fascinated about someone combining a chair just like the one in his father's den (which he was not allowed to touch) with a huge TV screen, a bathroom... Oh right, it had been a hairspray ad, he remembered now: the blonde applied it in a neat little bathroom, and young Tony had been able to see a glimpse of a bedroom through a cabin door. The prospect of all that, a functional little apartment combined with the freedom of flying, being able to go everywhere he wanted with his home had made a young Tony dream.

Unfortunately this particular flight lacked the freedom aspect. As cool as it was, the passengers were all too preoccupied with their own thoughts and sorrows to appreciate their surroundings.

When Gibbs came into the kitchen that morning and started the coffee machine, long before the sun had even dared to think about peeking over the horizon, Tony had been brave enough to not feign sleep, but instead, had crawled out from underneath the table and sat down beside the man. However, Tony hadn’t dared touch him, not even with his whiskers, as he waited for whatever might happen.

The blue-eyed man had looked down in his direction, and while Tony could tell how Gibbs had had to concentrate in order to really see Tony, he couldn’t decide on what it was that haunted him and made him get up in the middle of the night.

Man and Feline had gazed at each other for as long as the coffee machine needed to finish its job, but when the little switch clicked to the off position, instead of helping himself to his beloved beverage, Gibbs had put the cup in his hand away again, unused.

“Transform and come to bed.”

Although that had been the only words spoken between them, Gibbs had reached for Tony and pulled the Feline with his back against the older man's front with a hesitancy that seemed so foreign to him. It wasn't Tony's preferred sleeping position at all, but it sure beat the kitchen floor or a lonely bed half just for himself. Tony tried to stay relaxed and concentrated deliberately on the feeling of air stroking over his neck and ear, slow and regular like clockwork but not deep enough to signal sleep. Maybe the ass- kicking wouldn't be needed after all.

.-#-.

Williams wasn't a diplomat. Like Gibbs, his somewhat gruff, stiff and direct mannerism was often better received by distraught people than a more openly compassionate person would be able to achieve. He didn't badger the Mayers with overt attention. The Major, after exchanging a speaking look with Gibbs, had herded the father and son to the back of the jet and into the little bedroom for some privacy before returning to the main cabin and the other passengers.

The situation left the Head of Center with enough time and space to concentrate on Gibbs and Tony instead. Cait and Tim had wisely seated themselves as far away from their still extra cranky boss as the jet allowed. Though the first words that left Williams mouth, after sitting down across from Tony and Gibbs in one of the sinfully soft beige leather seat, made the poor Feline wish he could transform into his tiger form again and pretend to be incapable of using such highly technical things as computers.

“Tony, I explained to Agent Pope-Leyton that you have been far too busy with important matters to return her questionnaire, but please try to fill out that thing at the earliest opportunity.”

Tony risked a quick look to the left at Gibbs and was greeted by an imploringly raised eyebrow.

“Junk mail again?” the whisper reached his ears and Tony nodded miserably.

“Do I really have to? I think we’ve proven quite nicely that we don't cause publicity nightmares where we stay and go?” he pleaded with Williams. The case had been a nightmare itself, but their involvement had been productive. He had done good; shouldn't that be enough to get him out of the hot water and the need to show his grimly interested owner that dratted piece of intrusive nosiness. If anyone could get him out of it, the Head of Center surely would be the one.

“Out of my hands, but I was able to cancel the rest of the refresher course.” William squashed Tony's hopes.

But, no more refresher course? Some good news, at last. “Really?”

“As long as neither of you bite the wrong influential person literally-” he looked first at Tony then at Gibbs, “or figuratively, with things pertaining to Felines, you are in the clear. I’ve sent you a comprehensive list of rules, so you would at least know what you’d be breaking if you absolutely feel the need to. Do all of us a favor and refrain from making someone think you really need retraining, please? It would be a disaster on all fronts. Poor Justine was quite flustered when she came back.”

Tony shrugged his shoulders. That hadn't been his doing alone - the uptight trainer had been more annoyed with Gibbs than Tony in the end. A quick look from under his lashes to his partner made the Feline clamp down on an inappropriately gleeful smile. Jethro wasn't looking chagrined at all - more the contrary, the man was looking secretly smug, and it caused a warm, relieved feeling to develop in the chest of eagerly-watching Tony. Any other normal Gibbs-ish emotion was better than the dispassionate, arctic anger he had shown the previous day. Whatever he had worked out during the long, silent night, it had helped the older man reach even keel again.

Williams’ words confirmed for Tony, even if it wasn't plainly stated, that the whole affair had been an attempted counter-strike against the new direction of the Feline Center, and that those individuals had been deterred in some way, or had at least lost interest. 

Good. Tony would do what was expected, and make his little X’s in the questionnaire. Who said he had to tell the truth? Tony had always been good with guessing correctly at multiple-choice tests.

“The Feline Division is preparing to launch an information campaign but we need some time, groundwork, as well as positive interest by the public first.” The way the Major looked at the Feline-Owner pair in front of him implicated strongly that they would be a part of this master plan to subtly place a few Felines in view of the everyday joe. “The goal is to try and tweak it into more of a legal guardian-mentor system, but so far it's slow going.”

Gibbs looked toward the back of the jet, and a fraction of the old bitterness sneaked back into his voice. “Soon enough for Alec? Or is it A'lxan or something equally ridiculous now?”

Williams didn't react to his taunting. “I hope it will be soon enough for him. And for others. I talked with some people, by the way, and they liked your idea of keeping Captain Mayer near DC, but not as an instructor at the Center outright. Maybe as a consultant in public relations. The other kids might resent Alec's privileges, not without reason.”

Yeah, Tony thought. A lot of them would be jealous and hurt to see someone who was like them but had a loving parent left to dote on them.

Gibbs’ gimlet stare was fixed on the Major. “But he will be able to see his son often.”

“As often as both of them want to, within reason.” The Major smiled faintly. “You can check up on the Center regularly yourself as well, if you want. I don't mind visitors and my charges are very curious about meeting people from the outside. Some of the younger ones have been asking about how you are, Tony. They remember you fondly.”

“Curious? And questions?” Tony didn't want to become Exhibit A of what being a Feline in the wild, or something like that, was like. In his mind he could see one of the old lecture rooms at the Center filled with Felines of all ages and Pope-Leyton having him stand to attention in front and point out everything a good little Feline shouldn't do and be.

“I showed them the article in the newspaper about that rescue and your bath in the harbor. They were fascinated that you helped your owner, especially when I told them about you suddenly being able to morph back to human form,” the Major smiled serenely. “Prepare to answer some questions. Since Special Agent Gibbs is so interested in protecting the young, and has the needed clearance level, it would be lovely if he could to a little Q&A session as well, to prepare them for the outside world.”

“A session? About what?” Even the mighty Gibbs looked a little bit alarmed by that prospect. Proof that he at least shared some self-preservation instincts with normal humans.

“General everyday stuff. Shopping, how traffic functions.”

“Gibbs might be the wrong person to ask...” Tony couldn't help himself and his interruption got him a mild head-slap for his trouble.

“How about a little excursion, like to NCIS headquarters? They could see for themselves how Tony is doing.” Tim piped in and earned himself incredulous stares from the main group. Kids running wild at the Navy Yard...

“What? I'd like to do it with my scout group too.” McGee protested.

“I’m afraid that's a bit premature. Most of them have spent their whole lives at the Center and wouldn't deal well with such a culture shock.” Williams commented. “Maybe next year.”

A lot could and probably would go wrong with these plans. They depended too much on the patronage of influential people. And those might change.

Cait and Tim didn't have the necessary clearance - a fact that had soured the female former Secret Service Agent's mood quite a bit when she was informed by Williams - so it was only the Major, Gibbs and Tony who accompanied the Mayers. The Major was trying to make this first real contact with the Center as stress-free as possible while leading them through the corridors to his office. He played tour guide and pointed through big Victorian windows at the wrought iron and glass structure that was situated in the middle of the Center and the artificial jungle inside, then they passed a modern window front that connected the old brick building to a very modern looking building that contained a real gym.

The group stopped for a moment and watched two teenagers in work out gear train their karate moves. Some of the moves looked very professional.

“Never seen you use some of those moves, Tony.” Gibbs murmured.

“A little bit hard to learn as a tiger.” The Feline whispered back. During the three years they tried to make him catch up to the other adult felines, before forcing his virgin morph, he had been more into boxing. And afterward, running around on four paws was not conductive to staying in training.

Classrooms. Dormitories. The administrative wing.

Tony followed them, always making sure that he was within touching distance to Gibbs, and only kept half an ear on what the Head of the Center was saying, even though some of the information was new to him too. Most of the memories brought up by being here again were not pleasant, and he clung to the difference in perspective of not being in tiger form anymore, so he wouldn't get lost in his mind and do something stupid. Like grasping Gibbs' hand like a scared toddler. Tony hadn't expected that he would react like this.

A giggle, weak but there, made the adult Feline concentrate fully on his companions again. Ah, Alec had asked about the litter rooms, asked if Tony had indeed told him the truth. Trust a teenager to find shit amusing. He wouldn't find it so amusing after the first time he earned himself detention duty.

The Head's office had changed little since Williams had taken over from that asshole Parker and even more in the months since Tony had seen it last, but the details he altered made all the difference. In contrast to the previous Head's reign, there hadn't been many incidents where the Tony was called here to face the music for what Parker would’ve called 'another one of A'thon's damn foolish stunts'.

The office was still filled with the same heavy wood monstrosities, but all the little knick-knacks had been thrown out. The walls were plain white, and there were now more actual files and books in the shelves - no more kneeling benches or hooks on the walls. The right front corner now sported a huge green ficcus plant. When Williams took the job, he hadn't changed the furniture, claiming it would be frivolous as long as the old one was still functional. That might’ve been a former marine thing. Gibbs had a quirk about not changing things that were not broken too; otherwise, there was no good explanation for the god-awful, seventies-style lamp shades in Gibbs' house.

Major Williams put the files he was carrying on the desk and then turned to them again. “We already pulled all of your school files and medical records, Alec. You can join the others in their lessons tomorrow or the day after and we will see where you stand   
in your education. There aren't a lot of teenagers around; we have fifteen students of all ages at the moment and ten adults. Please keep in mind that they have a different upbringing than your own, yes? Most of them haven't morphed yet - we’re trying to avoid that until they’re in their twenties.”

Alec nodded, his eyes big. Tony had guessed that the thought of meeting his fellow classmates was daunting. Though, the adult Feline didn't think he would have many problems; from what Tony remembered, the other kids would find it cool that Alec could already shift and would either admire him or resent him for that ability alone. Typical schoolyard fights, Feline style, would be the result until the pecking order was re-established.

“The one thing we have to do today, apart from introducing you to the other kids, is having you undergo a medical exam, draw some blood, test your reflexes and senses. We have to make sure that everything is really all right.”

That meant a visit to the hospital wing. Tony stilled and gulped. He had absolutely no intention of ever setting foot or paw in those rooms again. It didn’t matter that Williams had already fired half of the staff as soon as he had taken over; Tony could feel his skin break out in hives just thinking about going in there.

“May I please wait here? I've spent enough time in there.” Tony stiffly and formally requested. If the rest of the Center had already made him tense as a guitar string, those rooms in the hospital wing would make him snap in front of an audience - Jethro - and that was something he wanted to avoid, thank you very much. Some of his thoughts must have bled into his voice against his will, because what he said made Gibbs’ sharp eyes concentrate on him and he could practically see the mind behind those eyes working, calculating. Then his owner threw another intense look at the Mayers. Maybe he was weighting his self-appointed duty as a stabilizing presence against staying near his distressed Feline. Tony decided to make it easy for him.

“I'll stay here and work on my report in the meantime, no problem at all.” he said, patting his bag, and added one of his best smiles to close the deal.

He wasn't fooling Gibbs, but the agent tipped his head and then followed the others out, taking Tony at his word that he would manage. Tony nearly called him back as he watched the door close.

Tony took off his backpack and let himself fall into one of the heavy leather visitor’s chairs. The prospect of writing down what had happened during the last few days was not really appealing, and not distracting enough. His eyes were involuntarily drawn to one specific metal file safe tucked behind the big, black, ostentatious desk, against the far wall. It was where the Center stored hard copy versions of sensitive files, about owners and clients. And the Feline would bet that the lock combination hadn't changed   
in the last few months.

Williams was more conscious of the fact that he was dealing with humans at the Center and not dumb beasts, but he still shared some weaknesses with that scumbag Parker. Like not being always remembering the fact that there was indeed a human brain watching from behind a cat’s eyes, and what they might see and remember.

All alone in the Head’s office, he could take a look and do a little reconnaissance on H'dira's owner. The small lynx-Feline had been the closest to a friend he had during his time here and he was worried about her. Williams wouldn't give her to someone who was an asshole, would he? He could ask the Major - Williams wouldn't give him the owner's name, since that was against the rules, but he might be able to tell Tony some general information.

Or, he might take a look at a different, more personal file instead. Get some answers to questions he would never have dared to ask, and reasons for the expression that had dimmed certain blue eyes during the last two days. Reasons Tony could otherwise only speculate about.

.-#-.


	10. Chapter 10

It was good to be home again. Their orders were to write their reports and hand them over to the SSFD. Officially NCIS involvement with this case was over. Army CID had Mrs. Mayer in custody and an aunt would be taking care of Alec's sisters until this mess could be sorted out. All that was left was a broken family, a still-nameless corpse and a lot of paperwork. And a lot of unsaid words between one adult Feline and his owner.

A very silent, thoughtful Feline and an even more silent owner. Tony had ran upstairs and changed into more casual clothes before hurrying down again. He honestly didn't expect Gibbs to explain himself - he had never done so before - but Tony wanted to be near the other man.

Light spilling out from an open door told him where Gibbs had disappeared to - the basement. Tony weighted his options and then took a look into their refrigerator. He wrinkled his nose at some of the things in there that hadn't taken kindly to be left there for three days, or longer, depending on when they had put a particular box of leftovers in there. It was a good thing that Gibbs always stored some non-perishable food as well; the man had even added a small bottle of long-life milk for Tony to his pantry, or there wouldn't be anything to eat in the house.

Tony felt like a coward, because instead of going downstairs immediately, he collected the stinky leftovers into a bag and went outside to throw it into the bin - the kitchen could only benefit from his actions. He even spared a friendly wave at Mr. Oppenheimer who greeted him back before returning to the kitchen to prepare coffee. After all, was it really cowardice to prepare a fresh offering of coffee for his partner and himself to carry down or was it more common sense?

Gibbs was working on a plank of his boat, sanding it to smooth perfection with slow, hypnotizing strokes that always made Tony feel like a fool because it was all kinds of embarrassing to feel not only jealous of the wood but at the same time feel the need to purr in sympathy. The Feline put down one of the two over-sized cups on the workbench and then retreated to the stairs with his own. The beverage got him a nod of thanks so he assumed that Gibbs was only brooding a bit and sorting things out in his mind again, and not in a full out angry sulk.

The wooden skeleton was slowly developing into something that could be more easily identified as a real boat without the need of in depth nautical knowledge. The first time Tony had looked down here in his quest to learn every nook and cranny of his new home he hadn't known what to think of it. Creating abstract art didn't seem to fit Jethro Gibbs' nature, and it didn't look like it could ever develop into usable furniture. Not switching on the light and instead relying on illumination provided by the two small basement windows hadn't helped at all to make sense of the shadowy, curving shapes and forms when all Tony had expected was cupboards with potatoes and veggies, cans, and whatever else normal people stored in a room that was not meant to be used as living space. Not a half-finished, handcrafted sailboat.

When Gibbs, sneaky as ever, had appeared behind him, gently shoved the tiger to the side, switched on the light and gone down to pick up his tools, Tony had needed nearly ten additional minutes to guess what his owner was building. And the fact that, from the way the man was touching the pieces, it would be a very bad idea to sharpen his claws with it.

No matter how much he wanted to, sometimes. It seemed to be a good tool to work off frustration, according to Gibbs.

Tony had never asked the obvious question of what would happen with the boat when it was finished, how to get it out of a door that was decidedly too small to fit a sailboat through it. What did Tony know about carpentry, measurements and practicality? Nothing.   
For all he knew the thing could have a collapsible feature so Tony had decided not to spend too much time on the mysteries of the boat. He took it as an eccentric barometer for the older man's moods instead. The longer Jethro was down here, the bigger the demons he tried to purge. Today Jethro had only shed his jacked and coat before going straight downstairs.

“Those kids are lively.” Gibbs commented without looking up from what he was doing.

Lively was one way to describe them. After Williams and Co. had returned to the office, they had gone to the residential wing. Their group had been ambushed - there was no other word for it - by a nosy, loud and clingy mass of juvenile Felines who wanted to know all about the exciting visitors and their newest playmate. It hadn't been only Alec who got overwhelmed by them.

“Lively... yeah.” Tony balanced his coffee-cup on his right knee. “Not what you expected, huh?”

Gibbs grumbled, voicing his version of assent. The three youngest kids had found the silver-haired agent especially fascinating and had crawled all over him, not scared off by his stern face at all. The sight would have made nearly all NCIS Agents faint in disbelieve if they could have seen the feared Lead Agent that afternoon. To Tony's shock one of the three toddlers had transformed into a lion cub and gone trustingly to sleep right in Gibbs lap. The boy couldn't be old enough to walk and was already able to morph?

“Our littlest Feline here is among the three kids with an activated gene, including Alec. He got trapped in a cupboard he had crawled in, and was unable to get out for nearly a day. When his parents finally found him, he had transformed into a cub.” Williams had explained in a low voice and left the napping toddler right where he was, sleeping with Gibbs as his pillow.

Tony had kept a close eye on Gibbs, when he wasn't busy dealing with admirers of his own, but even if the other man had looked pained sometimes, it might have been from feet where no feet should go, not dark memories.

“Parker, that was the head asshole during my time there, concentrated his attention on adult Felines and left the kids mainly to the nannies and tutors. Told ya, it's not all about sexual arts and none of that until late teens.” Some things even that scumbag hadn't attempted, no matter how big the check someone waved in front of his nose. Or he had enough brains to carefully divide kid and adult sections, even on the medical side, to avoid a mutiny by outraged, too soft-hearted caregivers. Why none of them had ever tried to stop what he did to the older Felines Tony did not know. Or maybe someone had tried and failed.

“You are more reassured now? That you aren't responsible by affiliation to unspeakable depravities?” Tony's free hand made an expressive gesture.

Gibbs exchanged his sanding paper for one with a different grain before he answered. “Better, but I'm still not happy. Too much political crap, too little free choice.”

“Ain't that the truth?” Tony moaned. He wasn't content either but he suspected that he was more used to being helpless, if it came down to it, in the face of people in power and their whims. Gibbs might have had to deal with delusional commanding officers and orders that made little sense during his service as a soldier and later as an agent, but such things were rarely personal. It might have helped them both to cope better if they had talked more with each other about what bugged them during the case, but there never seemed to be a good time or a good starting point.

“And you, how do you feel now, Tony?”

Wow, to hear that question out of Gibbs’ mouth, which mirrored Tony's own thoughts. Hmm, how to answer that? The Feline thought. “Honestly? Like a wrung out wet rag. But I will be OK. No more cases like that would help, though.”

Another grumble of assent. More sanding. More words. Other topic. “By the way, the staff at the hospital wing dug into their computer system and found a set of more  
complete medical files. They gave me a copy.”

Tony stopped fidgeting with his cup. “Ducky will be happy to get them. He found some inconsistencies in the ones they sent him before and you should have heard him, he can be polite, not use one swear word at all and still rip into someone he sees as incompetent like you wouldn't believe.”

“Hmm.”

No more comments or questions were forthcoming for long minutes of sawdust floating down and adding another layer to the already dusty floor.

“Speaking of files, Tony. Shouldn't you be dealing with some of that spam?”

A wretched moan, much bigger than the issue deserved, escaped the Feline. “Crap. And I nearly managed to forget it, Boss. Thank you so much for reminding me, really.”

“Why don't you use my laptop and do it now? According to McGee my wireless internet connection functions down here.”

Tony sighed deeply and, with the posture of a condemned man, climbed up the stairs. Gibbs might have the right idea though; if Tony dealt with it now he could draw a real line under the issue and go forward. When he returned with the seldom-used private laptop, Gibbs had swept aside some of his tools on the workbench and cleaned the surface a bit. He even spread a clean sheet of brown package paper to protect the computer. And he had unearthed an old printer and an unused, unopened pack of paper.

It wasn't hard to interpret what was being hinted, and after some fumbling, checking if the ink was still in working condition and booting up the laptop, the printer began to spat out that dratted questionnaire. Gibbs snatched the cover paper, held it as far out as he could and squinted at the text.

“They want to know how satisfied you are with me, and whether I need to get some extra training so you don't get inferior service just because you selected damaged little me,” Tony rambled over the rattling printer noises. Damn remnants of an old administration that clung to their power and insisted of butting in where they were neither wanted, nor needed.

“The only thing that is a little damaged about you is the filter between your brain and your mouth,” Gibbs looked around, collected his glasses and a carpenters pencil, shoved the readers on his nose and then took another long, disgusted look at the sheet. “If they want to know, they should have asked me directly. Let's get this over with.”

Tony watched him read through the first two pages, watched as the gray eyebrows first drew together over the bridge of his nose and then rose to nearly touch his fringe. Asking Gibbs to do it for him had never occurred to the Feline, and he was no longer worried about a reaction, it couldn’t be worse than the last days. It was nevertheless like watching an irresistible force meeting an immovable object.

“Crappier than the penis enlargement spam. Tony, would you please fetch a pen from upstairs? Paper pushers frown on filling out their officious nonsense in pencil.”

“Sure.” This time Tony hurried and when he returned the printer had finished and Gibbs was looking from one sheet to the other.

Gibbs didn't look in his direction, he straddled the only chair-like object in the basement - a saw horse - and organized the sheets before he held out his hand, waited for the younger man to place a pen in it. Tony observed how Gibbs made some notations, crossed something out and put his sign under every page he finished.

“I don’t want to give you any reason ever again for not coming to me directly with something, be it information, hunches or crap like this.” It was all Jethro said as Tony watched him finish and turn to another page.

Tony shuffled behind the older man, no longer able to resist seeking body contact and hugged him loosely. Gibbs didn't seem to mind so Tony rested his chin on Gibbs’ shoulder for a better view, watching the older man cross out whole sections and fill out others in his spidery but precise handwriting. The more his owner wrote, the more Tony relaxed. Someone's eyes would bulge when they read this, but since they would get their answers, just more directly than they had intended, they wouldn't be able to complain, would they?

One particular comment made him snicker against his better judgment and rub his face against Gibbs’ neck. “No complaints or negative reactions about the way I address superiors? Gee. Not something I hear a lot of but good to know.”

“Tony, if you annoy me too much with bad habits or get too mouthy, I don't need an official trainer to make you stop; I'll do it myself.”

“True.”

Another 'I like the way it is so there's no need for you to know details' notation made him snicker again, forgetting that Gibbs needed only one hand to write. His other hand was free to reach behind and tug on Tony's sensitive neck hair.

“Ouch!”

“Nope, no problem at all,” Gibbs’ hand stayed where it landed, expressing better than words that he wasn't really annoyed.

From the way they were touching, it was easy for Tony to guess which sections of that file were annoying Gibbs more than others before the corresponding pointed answer hit the paper. Tony closed his eyes. The low, disgusted grumbles would make the shoulder under his chin vibrate, as the more invasive sections made Gibbs tighten up all over. Some only provoked irritated, disbelieving head shakes that made the short hair on the sides of Gibbs’ head rub against Tony's face.

“Nosy buggers. They try to cover everything, don't they?”

Tony had lost track for a bit, just enjoying the warmth and the smell of sawdust and Jethro, and had to blink before the letters on the pages in front of him made any sense. Ah yes, the section that made Tony want to punch someone. With a bold fresh cross adorning every page and bold letters forming one word.

“Just 'Private'? They won't agree.”

“They can ask me to my face if they want to know whether or not we tried the Karma Sutra from cover to cover and how I reacted to every damn detail. If they dare. It's none of their business.” Gibbs put one last signature on the last page, collected all the loose sheets into one tidy pile and put it aside.

“You don't mind that we haven't done some of those things?”

“No.”

“I mean, if you want I can-”

“Tony, no.” Gibbs turned halfway around and captured the younger man's mouth in a tender kiss, the kind that made Tony weak in the knees - firm and slow. “I am happy with what I have and the pace we've set, really.”

Jethro wouldn't lie, would he? The man horded his words like a dragon would gold and when he gave them away privately, calmly like just now, they had weight. Tony got the feeling that his words weren't directed only at the sexual aspect either. Tony gulped hard, tried to dislodge the jumble of words and feelings which had taken residence in his throat and firmly pressed his face against the older man's neck again, this time to hide. It was silly to allow himself to come undone by something like this, but after the week he had it was hard to hold back now.

Happy. Yeah, that was an adequate word to describe how he felt right now. Maybe he should translate his speechless state into something else and try for even happier with touches where words simply would not reach. Tony didn't remove his face, keeping it where it was, but slung his arms around Jethro more firmly, with one of his hands resting on the small of the other man's hard muscled chest and the other hand stroking over silver hair.

Happy was perfect. This second.

And the next as well, when holding still wasn't enough anymore but moving would be too much. But gliding was all right. A little up, a little wet, a little open. Stubborn jawline; stubbly, warm cheek; a welcoming mouth. Thin, agile lips moving patiently against his own. Two tongues touched and touched again with an understanding foreign to the words those muscles normally helped forming.

Kissing Jethro, this second, was like compressing a hundred touches and whole nights into one.

.-#-.

Epilogue

Gibbs was unable to find sleep, despite being bone tired when they finally made their way up to the bedroom, in contrast to Tony, who was snoring softly already. Washing sawdust out of hair and short fur had been a nice way to calm down but it was even better to relax into the sanctuary of their familiar bed.

His fingers stroked, lightly, not really touching at all, over Tony's sleeping features as if to sear them into his brain just the way they were now. Tony at rest didn't look younger than he was, unlike poets pretended people did when asleep. He didn't look more innocent either. Innocence would mean that life hadn't touched him and that was just not true. Shadows concealed nearly his whole face, but what he could see, in addition to what his fingertips told him, still bore the signs of a life lived and not lived easily. Some of those wrinkles had been caused by laughter but not all. Lines were carved on the younger man's forehead and in the corner of his eyes that rest couldn't erase and there was nothing poetic about the drool slowly dampening Gibbs’ shoulder.

Tony shuddered a little bit, his eyeballs moving rapidly under closed lids and his lover, guessing that it was a dream and not the cold night air, pulled the comforter higher nevertheless and rubbed his palm down Tony's back. The younger man snuggled down trustingly, made a little sound and then stilled again.

Earlier today Gibbs had turned around, halfway down the hospital wing, changing his decision to stay with the Mayers in favor of talking to Tony, and to try and clear some things up, maybe ask some questions. When he silently opened the door he found Tony in front of that big file cabinet in the Major's office, staring down at something in his hands. Gibbs' eyesight might not be what it had been in his sniper days but most people who teased him about his need for glasses tended to forget that Gibbs needed them to read things up-close. He had absolutely no difficulties with long distances and could still distinguish letters forming his own name on a page at the other end of a room any day.

He could easily guess what Tony was holding in his hands; he had seen it before. That damn, comprehensive, invasive, complete file the White House had compiled about him before deciding he was worthy of a special reward.

In hindsight he should be more surprised about the lack of anger he had felt this afternoon. Thoughts and memories that had been his constant companions during the last three days might have leeched any emotional energy from his bones, there was nothing left to fuel his anger again. That was one possible explanation for not storming in and confronting the Feline. Another reason might have been the way Tony was handling that piece of papery misery, like it might explode in his hands any second.

While Gibbs watched him undetected, Tony shook his head, like his tiger form shacking off water-drops after playing in the snow, smiled sadly and stroked over the cover before putting the file back. Without taking a look into it. Like Gibbs hoped he would. Like he somehow knew Tony would.

There were some things black words on white paper forming sentences and descriptions could never manage to convey, and it was a phenomenon they saw on the job in less personal glimpses. The agents could try all they wanted, but they would still be unable to capture the true essences of what had happened during their cases. The resulting documents would be good enough for lawyers and judges, but some things, if they really had to be understood, should be shared by looks and touches, voluntarily, not on paper.

Neither a detailed file describing his own past nor descriptions in the data-stick that contained Tony's complete medical history resting in his coat pocket should be touched without permission.

Gibbs closed his own eyes and tightened his hold on the man in his arms

Maybe they would never need to have those talks, because knowing for sure what was in the past didn't change how they felt in the present.

The End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This would not have been possible without the support of a few people^^ Wintermute for hunting down the worst of my blunders, Riazendira for cheerleading and EllensCult for calming me down during the writing process.


End file.
